


Sea Legs

by Makimii



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Coffee Shops, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Gardens, Libraries, M/M, art hoe aesthetic, but it's the fun type of political conflict u know?, general cheesy romance, general soft boy activities, magical kingdom political conflict, village shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-14 15:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makimii/pseuds/Makimii
Summary: If there was a good way to poison someone, Johnny had definitely found it: Taeyong’s mind was permanently tainted with stupid ideas. What if he left the water for good? Would Johnny help him? Or, what if he just stayed with the man forever, keeping guard for his new friend, fighting against the people who wanted to kill him? Did it even matter if Johnny Seo was dead? Maybe he was a criminal, but the flowers in Taeyong’s hands proved otherwise.Midnight may be only one hour, yet when the Chief Warrior of the underwater kingdom is sent on a mission to kill an unassuming-at-first-glance human, five midnights they share make an impact on both their lives, for better and for good.#S058





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! thank you for taking a look at this fic : )  
through a bunch of nights spent writing, dispersed between schoolwork and extracurriculars, I've finally had the golden opportunity to get excited about, to start, and to finish my first fic! the prospect of mermaids and warriors (and mermaid warriors, agh! how perfect!!) automatically enamoured me as soon as I saw the prompt, and I was so happy to have been able to put my spin on it. so, to the prompter, thank you so so much!  
I made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1vjXxG9xGL90PBYptcYkP7?si=VRcJZYpMQcG99242U5GoJg) for this story too, if you'd want to check it out! (it's not the best thing--the more i listen to it, the more eclectic it starts to sound, but that's just how it be sometimes i guess)  


The long, echoing chimes of 11 o'clock rang in the evening ritual. Take the winding brick paths down the steep hills of the village, beyond the cramped, vine-covered buildings and the blazing amber lights in the windows. Walk carefully on the rickety wooden bridge that cut through the line of trees, keeping watch on the planks in the moonlight, making sure not to sink a heel in the holes scattered across them. Then, once the bridge dipped down into the sand and the ground no longer felt purely solid, gaze up at the billowing clouds and the gleaming moon and all her twinkling friends aligned into constellations. Hear the rumble of waves breaking against fragments of shells and sea glass, and the resounding gull-calls that reverberated through the air. Hum a little tune and spin unstable, clumsy pirouettes. And while looking back at the dim lights of the village peeking through the trees, feel completely separated from the world.

Maybe Johnny was just being an idealist, but he felt as if he could spend days’ worth of time at the shore at midnight. Then again… of course it was idealistic. Midnight was only one hour, no matter how beautiful it was.

He had walked about half a mile down the beach—he could tell from his view at the edge of the water. The peak of the mountain would reach high above the oak trees, the shore would lose its curve, and the lighthouse would align perfectly with the sand. He sat by the ocean, letting the water wash over his sandals and his hands sink into the chilly, soft sand. The crashing waves, the fizzling of the sea foam, the loud drawn-out caws of the seagulls, all of it was just as beautiful-sounding as the hundreds of days before. It never got old, not to him.

Then. He noticed something; a dark little rock-sized thing moving past his foot into the wave approaching it, quickly getting engulfed by the water and carried out to sea. Then another. Johnny watched the strange little creatures before being struck with a sudden realization: oh god, oh god! The turtles were hatching! With excitement bubbling up in his chest, he let out some instinctual squeak of joy and scrambled up from his spot next to the water. He followed the tiny trail left by the turtles up to the trees and stopped at a heap of kicked-up sand, smiling proudly at the sight in front of him. The nest he had found all by _himself_, with no help whatsoever, was one of his prized discoveries. And now? His babies were _hatching_.

Seagulls circled the area, swooping down low and letting out sharp joyous caws. He heard one whooping behind him. Oh god, a baby was already in its beak; it was taking off and kicking sand and fighting off another gull. Johnny’s heart raced as he stood amid the wild creatures. Then, he scooped up the turtle closest to his foot, then another one right next to the first, and bolted to the edge of the water, then ran back again to kick away a zealous gull standing right in the nest and grab more babies, fumbling around and getting sand in his eyes and running back and forth and whisper-screaming “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” until the last turtle clambered out of the nest, dragging themself along the sand. Nonchalant as they crawled past the remaining gulls. 

Johnny cupped his hands under the turtle, picking them up and taking a bit of sand along with them. They stared at him, and although Johnny was absolutely sure that he was projecting human emotion onto an animal’s face in the dark, he was sure he saw wonder dancing in the creature’s eyes.

“Hello there, lil fellow,” Johnny cooed, feeling warmth and happiness blossom in his chest as he watched the turtle flick their flippers. Slowly, taking all the time in the world to observe his new friend, he walked over to the water. “You’re so handsome. Or pretty. Whichever you’d like more.” He tripped on a shell, stumbling for a second or so, but he steadied himself as quickly as possible and looked at his hands again to see the turtle still there, watching. “Would it be okay if I name you? I—I hope you said yes, because I’m going to either way.” He stopped right at the edge of the water, the tide rushing over his ankles and anchoring his shoes in the sand. “I... I’ll name you Everett. Because it’s cute, yes, but you’ll grow to be _super_ majestic someday, and I think the name’ll still fit.” Everett still stared up at him, eyes wide and intent. 

“Okay.” The water rushed towards them once more. “Time for you to go. Good luck, Everett. Look for me if you ever need help, okay? Ha-ha-ha. Okay.” He set his hands down to the water, guiding Everett into the retreating wave. “Bye-bye, lil fellow.”

With that, the turtle began its journey through life, and Johnny felt ready to return home.


	2. Chapter 2

Through the long fissure in the ceiling, cool light filtered into the cavernous room. It shimmered in the flecks of metal scattered in the floor tiles and refracted silver in the gold-and-copper artifacts dispersed on marble shelves, hidden in little stone-laid caverns in the wall, set next to the huge aquamarine dome of light that spurted air bubbles like a fountain spouted water. Taeyong leaned his head back onto the stone base of the dome, his blue hair stirring a bit from the movement. He held an hourglass in his webbed hand; light refracted in the glass, and the sand inside of it glittered like some spell was captured within every granule, shimmering as it fell through the funnel in a thin, clean line. _How strange,_ he found himself thinking. _What would the humans need this for?_

From outside came a loud crashing sound, then a **bang** as the double doors flung open. Taeyong jumped, flipping over in his spot and peering up over the top of the dome. It was Ten who had done it; his eyes were wide and his usually perfect black hair was all over the place like he had swam miles at top speed. He pulled his untied green shawl over his shoulders and wound up the ribbon between his fingers nervously, his chest heaving and shoulders shaking. His dark-eyed gaze landed on Taeyong after searching wildly around the room. 

“Where’s Doyoung?” Ten gasped. Before Taeyong could respond, he shouted it again: “_Where’s Doyoung?_”

“He left to get a book from his room.” Instead of just visibly sinking like the man would normally do, Ten let out an emotional sob and rushed over to Taeyong, throwing his arms around him desperately. Taeyong hugged back, dropping the hourglass and brushing his fingers through Ten’s hair in an attempt to get it back in place again. 

“What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Th-the beach,” Ten cried into Taeyong’s shoulder. “Some—some _human scum_—killed three god-damn turtles as they hatched. It’s worse than the gulls. They just take them out of their misery and eat them. But… A son and two daughters, lying on the sand, _crushed._ Not even dead.” His shoulders sank with each word. Taeyong felt his breath catch painfully in his throat. “I feel so horrible. I couldn’t even punch him. I wasn’t prepared for the hatching season; my legs were too weak to get me to him. He was so tall, so fast.”

Just then, the smaller door in front of them opened, and Doyoung wandered in with the trace of a grin on his face. A few novels were stacked in his arms, some human-made fictions that he had grown to admire; the gems dangling from his silver headpiece glinted in the wavering light. To Taeyong, he could’ve been regarded as the epitome of peace and regality, all soft skin and soft smiles, near-translucent webs interconnecting his long, thin fingers and round sapphire-tone scales set upon his hips in a gentle, subtle fade. It was safe to assume that most that spent a good amount of time at the castle would develop a strange admiration for Doyoung, whether for him or for his power. 

He set his gaze on the two of them, scanning from Taeyong’s furrowed eyebrows and pouting lips to Ten’s quivering shoulders. “Which one of them hurt you this time?” the boy asked Ten, concerned, referring to citizens that Taeyong didn’t know of. 

Ten looked up, red-eyed and sullen. “None of them, sir.”

Doyoung set his books down on a stool and rushed over, sitting next to them. He gave Ten’s hair a quick ruffle. The man barely paid attention to it. “Don’t call me sir. What’s wrong?” he prodded, visibly struggling to bite down emotion.

Ten recounted the situation, turning into a sniffling mess halfway through and burying his head into Taeyong’s chest. Taeyong, startled and still disgusted by the man from the beach, finished the story: 

“Nobody was there to stop him. He deserves some form of punishment.”

Doyoung thought for a second, looking disheartened, flashing looks at Ten with a bit of pity in his eyes. “He does,” he answered in a mumble. “It would be easy to do without humans noticing, as well. Unless… there aren’t many other people that go onto the beach, right?”

“No, especially not at midnight.”

“Well,” Doyoung finished diplomatically, “if we can figure out who this man was, we could assassinate him with no human confrontation. Of course, it’d be optimal to keep a few days before the murder for spying and other precautionary research measures. Maybe it’s a misdemeanor, but if this man has done any other crimes, it would be a reasonable action to take.” He got up and held out his hand. Ten took it; Doyoung could barely pull him up, but when he did, he brought the boy into a brief hug. Taeyong thought it was strictly formal until, just for a moment, he saw Ten bury his head in the crook of Doyoung’s neck and Doyoung squeeze his arms tight around Ten’s waist. “We’ll sort this out with my father. He’ll have records, and if you’ll let us use your memories—_if you’ll let us,_” Doyoung emphasized. There was no need to, though; Ten immediately agreed to let the spell be used on him. “We’ll be able to match the man to other crimes if he has committed them.”

“Thank you, Doyoung,” Ten mumbled, sniffling. Doyoung gave a curt nod and led the man to the door, taking his novels in his other hand. 

Taeyong then jumped up, bolting over to them before the door opened, putting a hand on Doyoung’s wrist. Doyoung looked back expectantly.  
  
“Uh… If—when—you need to send someone to kill this man… I’ll do it.”

Doyoung laughed a little. “I wouldn’t have asked anyone else. But thank you for volunteering and not trying to put any of your apprentices in the position.”

Ah. The apprentices. Men of many words, many training hours, and very little subtlety or tact. They were a good example of how most of the apprentices in the warrior program acted, if not perfect stereotypes. “Of course not,” Taeyong responded with a smile, struggling to maintain eye contact with the King's son. “And either way, I believe this is a case I’d prefer to take on myself.”

Doyoung gave him a heart-warmingly fond smile, then promptly left the room, taking Ten along with him. 

☾☀ 

By the evening, a letter was set in front of Taeyong’s door. He put a bookmark in his leather-bound book and took it, breaking the seal and scanning over the King’s looping cursive penmanship:

_The perpetrator behind the destruction of the sea turtle nest on the beach has been identified. Johnny Seo, the man from said village, has been considered a suspicious character for years. He has performed other harmful acts, involving tampering with the nest before hatching, leaving items on the beach, and causing general disruption and harm to other animals. He has also taken a multitude of whole, unscathed shells from the shore. Although these are inconsequential misdemeanors and normal human actions, the amount of crimes committed and the showcase of his capacity to kill leads us to take action. _

_ You will, starting midnight tomorrow, report to the shore alongside Ten and Renjun and be turned human for times ranging from one to two hours. For the next five days, you will wait for him; you will sit at the shore near the nest and watch him closely. Take notes of his actions—any weaknesses, or strongpoints that he might use to fight back (please keep in mind that your own legs will not be very strong; five one-hour periods will certainly not allow you to kick any higher than the knee or withstand a large amount of force pushing against you). After the five days, any amount of preparation necessary for the assassination can be taken, whether it be physical or mental. When you have completed your mission, you will report the body to Doyoung. _

_ Thank you for volunteering your time for the case. Your help and support is very much appreciated, and I and my son will try our best to repay you._

He carefully folded up the letter and set it on his table, pride filling him in a way that it never had before. To him, in that moment, the letter was more precious than the jewels in Doyoung’s headpiece or the golden statues next to the dome in the hall. A chance to help, a chance to finally use his skills against the scum of the earth and exact revenge for their bad deeds? It was a chance which he never had before, even during his time as the head of the warrior program; a chance that enamored him beyond compare. 


	3. Chapter 3

A new week arrived, brisk and drizzly. A half-mile from the bridge, in front of the rain-spattered sand that Johnny kicked up two days before, someone sat by the water, completely still. Johnny picked up the hood of his poncho, watching warily as he tiptoed by. Since when did other people go on the beach? Johnny was the village’s exception; he left just before the midnight curfew and pretended like he had lost track of time if an officer he didn’t know caught him walking back. 

The man by the water had rested an elbow on his knee, something small clasped in his hand. His face—a face that Johnny had never once seen before—looked sharp-edged, and his nose was thin; raindrops pattered onto his bare shoulders. He was delicate, with long bony legs and thin wrists, yet somehow equally stoic. Johnny couldn't help but stare as he wandered closer, hoping that the man wouldn't look back. Maybe he would just blend in with the trees; it was dark enough; he was tall enough. But he only walked a few feet more until the man turned his head, glowered at Johnny’s general vicinity, then turned back to mutter something into the thing in his hand. The words were lost over the crashing waves. 

Johnny realized that his heart was racing. He walked farther down the shoreline, clinging onto the strings of his poncho until he was a good few meters away and the man looked just like a little blob through the rain. He waded in the cold water for a few seconds, feeling his heartbeat steady, until the pattering of raindrops on the sand and the breaking waves got the best of him. He threw his sandals and poncho onto the shore and rolled up the cuffs of his pants, then splashed through the waves, barely worrying about broken shells poking at his feet or rain sliding off his hair and plopping onto his cheeks. He'd have fun despite that man. He'd prove it to himself.

The next night, the sky was clear and the sand was warm. The moon was full and beautiful, dousing the shore in pretty pale light. And the man was back. He muttered, talking into a tiny conch shell in his palm, barely moving his lips. His dark eyes rolled a little bit as he talked, and he brushed a long-fingered hand through his flat hair, which was a crystalline shade ranging from aquamarine to a pure sky blue—Johnny couldn't exactly tell from his vantage point. He bit on his bottom lip and pulled a long piece of silklike fabric higher up his tiny, sinewy stomach again, just before looking right up at Johnny.

Johnny was frozen to the spot. The man looked like he was studying every feature and flaw on his face, watching his eyes widen in shock and his lips pull back into a worried grimace. Then, after a few long, excruciating seconds, the man looked away, and a pressure lifted off Johnny’s chest. He resorted to sitting at the water as far away as he could while still being able to see the man, collecting dangerously sharp pieces of sea glass up from the shore before the waves washed them away. He felt stares boring into his back the whole night. 

The night after—bright and cloudless. Johnny sat maybe a meter or two away from the man, dragging a finger languidly through the sand, looking up at him through his peripheral vision. The man mumbled into the shell in his half-closed fist again, then absentmindedly brushed his hand against three long, deep, straight slits on the side of his neck. Dark sunspots dotted his cheeks, and his now clearly aquamarine hair fell sloppily into his face. He watched Johnny for a few seconds again, staring him down emotionlessly. 

☾☀

“Tell me what’s going on,” Johnny pleaded to Jaehyun the next morning, after barging into his apothecary as soon as early dawn light touched the streets of the village. 

His friend was reorganizing a shelf filled with pretty crystal spires and geode halves, with his usually-neat, long hair tied up into a puff on the back of his head. He bit on his bottom lip for a second, his eyebrows furrowed as he picked up an amethyst. 

“That’s a mermaid,” he decided with a shrug, turning back to see Johnny’s terrified face. He smiled smugly as he looked away, watching dust shift in a beam of golden light that poured in from the window. “Disguised, of course, but—“

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” He brushed a thin layer of dust off the crystal with his pinkie. “He never leaves the waterfront, he never speaks to you, he talks into a conch. Hell, you saw the lines on his neck. That's paradigmatic shit, Johnny.”

“So what do I do?” Johnny asked tentatively, twirling his thumbs. He stared up at the strange paintings on the black walls—a lion with something inexplicable coming out of its mouth, a lady with flowers for eyes, a fish with a weirdly realistic human head—and wished that they along with Jaehyun could turn into something more normal, just for the time being. “Do I… do I talk to him?”

Jaehyun huffed. He sat down at his table, righting the dark blue tablecloth before gesturing for Johnny to sit down. Johnny’s knees hit the low tabletop as he slid into the wooden chair.

“Unless you really want to have me ask the tarot cards—which, please don’t, I’m so tired right now—I can’t exactly tell you how to deal with it. But I’ll tell you this: _If the one that you grow close to has three slits that adorn his neck, he will save your soul. But you must quickly make the first advance—to wait for him will drive the creature to run._”

“Jae, that literally just means to talk to him. You really don’t need to make everything premonitory like that.”

“Don’t blame _me_,” Jaehyun said back. “I’m not the ancient explorer who penned it. Besides, Min knew best! He lived with mermaids for _years_ at a time in his adolescence.”

“Well, whatever he says goes, then. But... what do I say?”

Jaehyun tilted his head to the side in contemplation. “Simple.” He rightened up again, his face brightening with a kindly grin. “Just say hello. Everything else will follow.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Hello.”

Taeyong looked up from the ebbing waves. It was the village man, Johnny Seo. Just as tall and strong as he had expected, just as quaint and strange as he didn’t. He had heard many times growing up that façades are ever-present and deceiving, and that was certainly the case with Johnny. 

Yet his eyes looked a little worried, like he was edging on a life-changing moment, and his posture looked a little uncertain, like he wasn’t quite ready to face it. 

Taeyong blinked at him. He couldn’t think of what to say. He didn’t think there was anything he _could_ say. Even a “Hi” back would be useless. He wiggled his toes for a quick second, testing if he’d be able to stand up; his leg trembled with the movement, either from weakness or fear, and he decided against killing Johnny right then and there.

Johnny sat down next to him, setting his feet in the water just before it retreated, the cuffs of his taupe pants pulled halfway up his calves. He set an elbow on his knee, mimicking Taeyong exactly—he couldn’t tell whether he did it consciously or unconsciously. 

“I’m Johnny.”

“Yes,” Taeyong mumbled, his tongue tripping over itself before he let out an _I know._ Johnny smiled back, amused.

They went silent for a moment, enough time for Taeyong to realize that, in the end, this was the man he was sent to kill. This was the perpetrator, the one who tore up a nest for sheer pleasure. His acting was sublime; he deceived so well that he must’ve been able to even deceive himself. Or was he even acting? Taeyong could barely tell.

But Johnny still smiled contently, twirling a piece of driftwood in the sand. “It’s weird to see someone else out at midnight. I’m usually all alone,” the human explained, each and every word filled with hesitation.

“Why?” Taeyong found himself asking. 

“Hmmh.” Johnny put his head in his palms. “It’s hard to describe. My friends would be fine with breaking curfew, but I wouldn’t want to go out here with them. I’ll sound greedy saying this, I know, but… I consider midnight on the beach to be, well, uh, my time. But I guess there might be something subconscious that I haven’t really gotten to thinking about.”

“Ah.” Taeyong mimicked Johnny, resting his head on his hands.

☾☀

The next day, as the moon reached its highest point in the sky, Johnny shied his way over to Taeyong, carrying something harmless-looking in one of his hands.

“He's here,” Taeyong mumbled into the tiny conch, feeling his hands tremble at the thought of interacting with the human again. Was it fear or excitement? He couldn’t tell.

“Good,” Ten said back through the shell dangled over his ear, his voice too cold and harsh for Taeyong to stand. He took the shell off and pushed it into the sand before Ten could say anything else.

Johnny wandered slowly towards him. He always took his time—a lot of time for someone as tall as him. His head always tilted up towards the sky, making his silky black hair fall back from his forehead, and his giant hands, when free, always sat in the front pockets of his pants with his thumbs looping around the front. Nearly every glimpse that Taeyong had seen of Johnny had perfectly reflected the last, even before the man saw him sitting near the shore—calm and grateful and absorbing his surroundings, much unlike the horror stories Taeyong had planned to discover. 

He put on a nervous smile as soon as he saw Taeyong’s face and gave a quick, tense wave. Taeyong smiled back for a quick second, then wondered why the man looked so surprised by it. 

“Hi,” he greeted again, jogging up to Taeyong and crouching down at his side. He held out a little makeshift bouquet of flowers with a proud smile. 

Taeyong’s jaw dropped. He'd never seen _real_ flowers up close before. The petals were soft and fuzzy and all light pretty colors, and the buds smelled exactly how he had imagined sweet honey and tea to smell, and the thin ellipse leaves curled up towards them gently. __

_ _ “My friend—Taeil, he's a gardener—he always tells me to give people flowers when you want to be their friend. It's corny, sure, but I believe him. So these are for you.”_ _

_ _ Taeyong stared at them for a second longer, fearing that the flowers would wilt as soon as he touched them. Delicately, he grabbed at the stem of the biggest bud—a milky-white one, with petals curving up towards the center like a fancy little bowl. His fingers brushed against lush leaves, soft and fuzzy in a way that he had never once felt in his life, and the sharp honeyed smell swamped his senses as he bowed the flower closer to his nose. _ _

_ _ “They’re not poisonous, I prom—“ Johnny started to laugh. He froze up when Taeyong looked up at him, smiling. His eyes wide and excited and grateful, his hands cupped around the bouquet. He slowly guided the flowers out from the boy's hands and onto his lap. Johnny sat down right next to him, and every once in a while, Taeyong would look up to see a meekly surprised look on Johnny’s face, something that didn’t disappear until the man himself left, when the faint chime of a clock-tower from far away rang in the new hour._ _

_ _ If there was a good way to poison someone, Johnny had definitely found it: Taeyong’s mind was permanently tainted with stupid ideas. What if he left the water for good? Wouldn’t it be better up there, to live in the world that had never failed to pique his interest? How much could he learn? Would Johnny help him move into the village? Or, what if he just stayed with the man forever, keeping guard for his new friend, fighting against the kingdom that wanted to kill him? Did it truly matter if Johnny Seo was dead? Maybe he was a criminal, but the flowers in Taeyong’s hands proved otherwise._ _


	5. Chapter 5

Taeyong swam as fast as he could down the long dark hall of the library, feeling his chest burn and his tail ache. The tall open doors let cold morning light lay upon the stone floor, freezing the brass details on the walls into icy blues. The corals grown into the spires left stark shadows on the floor. 

The door at the end of the hallway was closed—a maroon one that turned a strange sickly color in the bluish lights, one that Taeyong was used to forcing open from the grasps of its rotting frame. He slammed his shoulder right in-between the double doors, and they burst open in a clamor of bubbles. Renjun, the library boy, nearly fell out of his chair, knocking his book against his face so hard that his wire glasses went askew. 

“Knock first!” Renjun scolded, slamming the novel against the ever-growing stack of books on his desk. He then looked up, realizing who he was talking to. Unsurprisingly, he made barely any adjustment to his harsh tone: “The hell do you want? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Yes, I know, _keep your strength for the murder,_” Taeyong mocked. “But I need to go up there another night.”

“Yeah. When you go murder the bitch.”

“N—no, I mean, I need to go back there. Tonight.”

Renjun glared at him over the rims of his glasses, wrapping his pale sandy hair tightly around his fingers. “For _what?_”

Taeyong scrambled to make an excuse. “I… I need to… build up the strength in my legs. I still can’t use them.”

Renjun let out a wry, one-note laugh. He tugged at the shoestring bow at the collar of his shirt and leaned onto his desk, pushing away a little plastic plant. “Lie. Book says you can stand after three one-hour periods, Taeyong. And for _really_ physically fit people like you, it should only take two.” He leaned in a little closer in some strange attempt at intimidation, even though he seemed more excited than scary. “So what are you doing it for?” 

Taeyong huffed and sunk onto the stool in front of the desk. “Johnny Seo is innocent.”

Renjun laughed again, a little harsher than before. “You’re kidding.”

“Please believe me, Renjun. He’s innocent. His crimes were mistakes.“

“And how do you know that?”

“I said believe me,” Taeyong snapped.

Renjun raised his voice in turn: “Listen, Tae, I’m not gonna just go and forgive a wanted man without reason, okay? And I’m not sending you out there. You need rest so you can go _kill_ him—”

“I can’t do it.”

Renjun froze up at that. He took it in for a second, forcing himself to stare around the room until he settled on watching the window in the far back of the office. He adjusted his glasses and hesitantly asked, “Then what are you going to do?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Taeyong started, “but I’m going back up there to talk to him. Just to see what actually happened.” Renjun gave him an incredulous glare. “Listen, I can just pretend I’m finalizing my idea in my head. That's what the preparation time was meant for, after all.”

“So, what, you’ll feign interest?” Taeyong nodded proudly. “They’ll figure you out.”

“Sure, but it’ll last for long enough that I can get some other civilians on my side.”

“Like _who?_” Renjun laughed. “You know whose word you’re going up against, right? The _King’s son_ and the _most venerated man_ in this entire goddamn kingdom? Your students’ll beat you up for speaking against Ten faster than you can get the most gullible person in this kingdom to believe you.”

“Jun, they won't call me crazy if I have claims to go against the ruling—which I don’t, but that’s why I’m going back. We hold high positions, and if we and another delegate work together, we could fare well.”

Renjun rolled his eyes and lolled back his head for a second, grabbing a clean quill and sticking the tip into his mouth to make it look like he was thinking even harder than he really was. “Well,” he said in a drawl, “of _course_ another delegate would help, but… why not destroy this case from the source? Why don’t we, just… get Ten on our side instead?” Taeyong immediately shook his head, but Renjun kept going: “He listens to you, he cares about your well-being—shit, he let _you_ train his assistant instead of the King. Your opinions hold an important place in his heart. Believe me when I say that you were probably the one who set him out to kill this guy.”

Taeyong nodded solemnly. That was certainly the case, now that Renjun told him; would Johnny be in such a situation if Taeyong hadn’t called for revenge? 

“But still, he cares for the turtles. He wouldn’t have chosen to be the delegate, have such a big role, if he wasn't passionate about his work. I’m not sure if he’d let it go.”

“Then you have to really, really show him it was an accident. Have to _gather evidence_, like you said.” Renjun smiled a bit. He swam away from his desk with his quill still in his mouth, prompting Taeyong to follow with a beckon of his tiny hand. 

The boy led him through the hole in the ceiling, a little stony tunnel that reached up to a cave holding a muggy, dark air pocket. Little ledges adorned either side of a paper-cluttered mess, surrounded by what could’ve been a hundred unlit candles on tiny stone shelves. Taeyong slid himself onto one ledge and Renjun onto another; the boy rolled up his dripping sleeves, breathing in the damp heavy air as he dried off his forearms and tried to pat off his shirt with a towel. Taeyong ruffled his hair up with another one, feeling the half-dry strands fall strangely onto his forehead. He put his towel around his shoulders and watched Renjun as the boy took a metal lighter and spread the little flame onto the candles. Slowly, the room brightened, and a warm amber glow seeped onto their faces. 

Renjun set down the lighter and took the quill from his mouth, drying the feather with the towel before dipping it into an inkwell and pulling a piece of yellowed parchment over to him. Although the webs between his fingers made the quill a little unwieldy, he wrote in his quick slanting font with ease. “If you want to make sure that you have enough experience and evidence to sway someone onto your side, especially someone as strong-willed as Ten is, you have to spend more time with the defendant. So, we’ll make a schedule. From midnight to, let’s say, nine in the morning, you’ll stay in the village with Johnny—after telling him what you are, of course, so he can consent to housing and financially supporting a non-human. Quite a nifty human law if I say so myself. And we’ll do this midnight every Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday for… two months, maybe?”

“That was easy,” Taeyong remarked. Renjun looked up from the paper with a proud smile. “Did you remember my morning practices on Sundays and Thursdays, or was that just a wild guess..?”

“Honestly, Tae, I did it so that the days would be as spread out as possible, but now that you ask me, of course I did.” The two laughed a little bit; the sharp sound echoed warmly through the cavern. “But is there anything you’d want to change before I write down the scheduling?”

“Um…yeah… Do you think that I could stay in the village for longer?”

“Wel-l,” Renjun pondered, setting his nose on his hands with a curious look in his eyes, “if you still want me to do the spell, which I know you would probably prefer, it’ll give you about twelve hours, but… I want to make sure it won’t give out on you up there, and because of that an extra hour or so to get back to the shore is necessary. Precautionary measures. So… eleven?”

“Sounds good.” 

Renjun immediately got back to writing; the quill tip danced from one edge to another in a flurry of scratching sounds, then plunged into the inkwell before starting all over again. Half of the page was covered in words and dates and times by the time Renjun was finished. 

“So, why stay up there for longer than you need to? You like this man that much?” the boy teased.

Taeyong snorted. “No. Doyoung still has my heart.” The two laughed a little bit more. Of course Taeyong was being predictable, but who could say no to the King’s son? “I want to spend time with the humans. Besides, Seo is a very interesting person. I want to learn more about him.”

“Right,” Renjun said with a smile still on his face. He put his pinkie on the bottom of the page, muttering a quick incantation. A glimmering white barrier flashed onto the page so quick that it could’ve easily been dismissed as an illusion. He rolled it up and tied a string around it, plopping it in Taeyong’s hands as he shook the towel off his shoulders. “Give it to Johnny, and if he doesn’t agree to the situation, just kill him already, honestly.” He flashed a big grin at Taeyong, then turned to start snuffing out the candles. 

“See you tonight, at the shore. Good luck.”

“Good luck.”


	6. Chapter 6

Johnny stared at the page through the dim candlelight, dumbfounded. “So… you want to stay with me?”

Taeyong nodded, the beginnings of a smile growing on his face. Johnny watched the light dancing in the mermaid’s wide, dark eyes as he stared up, standing on wobbly legs with his fabric piece draped over his shoulders. He held the candle over the lip of the paper. Where he had gotten it from, Johnny didn’t know, but he wished that he could find out. 

“I’ll let you. It sounds like fun.” He smiled even more at that, little crinkly lines showing up right at the corners of his eyes. “But when we get there, you should shower if you’re able to. You kinda smell like brine. Well, not in a bad way, it’s reasonable, you live in the ocean, but—“

“I know,” Taeyong said. “I’ll see if I can clean it off.” Johnny was shocked to hear a full sentence from him; his voice was low and smooth, honey-sweet despite the nervousness that tinged it.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Johnny reassured, filling in the moment of anxious silence. “It’ll be alright either way. But, c’mon, we have to get going.” He jogged towards the bridge for a few seconds before turning back, realizing just who he was leading. Had the mermaid ever used legs before? Probably not, and hell, if legs were hard for someone who lived 22 years with them, he couldn’t even imagine how hard it was to only have had them for six days. So he went to his friend’s side, blew out the candle, and held out his hand. 

“Uh, Taeyong… Need help? The sand’s kinda…”

“Hard to walk in, yes.” Instead of taking Johnny’s hand, he wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “Ack—I’m sorry,” he mumbled, tripping over his feet as they started moving again. 

“It’s alright,” Johnny said. Were all mermaids so apologetic, or was Taeyong just nervous? Either way, he wanted to make sure his friend was as comfortable as possible. “Legs are weird anyways. We all should’ve just stuck to being one-celled microbes floating around the oceans, it was easier that way. But here we are, being clumsy, strange creatures, wandering through life with no other mission but to be happy, right?” He looked down at Taeyong—the top of his head was just about Johnny’s eye level, if not a little shorter—to see him nodding along contentedly, swinging the candle in his other hand. 

“You think staying up here’ll make you happier?”

Taeyong pursed his lips as he thought. “Yeah,” he said, readjusting his arm so it wouldn’t fall off Johnny’s shoulders. “I've read a lot of stories. The types humans write... handsome princes and roses.”

Johnny chuckled a bit. It was shocking, how innocent such a mature-looking person could be. “Like fairy-tales?” Taeyong nodded vigorously, nearly falling over as he did so. “Well... of course you won't see things like that here. Our village is small, and the stories are all so unreal. Too much coincidence, and magic that could never exist, and…”

“I know,” Taeyong said again. His shining blue hair, still damp from the water, fell into his eyes as he looked up from the sand. “But I want to see what it's really like.”

“Well, the village is… nice,” Johnny pondered. He realized it was hard to describe; what was special about it, what was worth mentioning? “The air gets warm and comfy in Autumn, even at night, as you can tell, I think. And... the sunlight, as it comes through windows, or even just touches your face... it feels cozy, and when you walk through the streets in mid-morning and all the smells from bakeries and restaurants and flower shops and food stores hit you, you're almost overwhelmed. But in a good way, you know?”

“I do.” Taeyong's voice trembled out of sheer excitement. Johnny couldn't help but laugh a little. 

The mermaid then looked up at the sky, at all the stars that crisscrossed the clear expanse. He watched them as if he was counting them, admiring each and every little dot with a gawp on his face. “It's so pretty,” he awed, his gaze scanning over a long belt of bright stars just ahead of them.

“You never looked at it?” Johnny asked.

“No.” 

“Well, you'll have a lot of time to now.” 

Taeyong smiled widely again, holding tight onto Johnny’s shoulder as they stepped onto the wooden bridge that wound its way through the trees. Just in front of them, the peak of the hill shone with candlelight that slowly dimmed as the seconds marched closer to midnight. Johnny stopped them there for a second, watching Taeyong’s eyes fill with admiration as he stared up at the village.

Taeyong was strange, Johnny noticed—not in the awkward, dorky ways that he and all of his friends acted, but in a way that was completely new and compelling. He was excited and nervous and innocent, yet somehow mature and quaint, yet mysterious, foreboding… Johnny wondered if he would learn something from Taeyong in return. Then again, of course he would. There was a lot to learn from someone as interesting as him.


	7. Chapter 7

Water, hot and clean, roared out of the showerhead like heavy rain, pelting against the tile walls and spattering on Taeyong’s back. His breathing came a bit heavy—each drop felt like a little pin puncturing his skin, and whatever fell onto his shoulders felt unreasonably hot. Yet, for some god-forsaken reason, it was… nice. Therapeutic. Like a massage, but much more painful. He breathed in the heavy, humid air and stuck his head under the water. It streamed down his face; his hair stuck to his forehead, its old briny seawater smell filling his nose unpleasantly. 

He took his head out from the water and shook it, rocketing droplets onto the white curtain. He looked down. Normal, awkward-looking human feet, knobby knees reddened by hot water. Everything was okay.

“It worked,” he called out.

“It did?” Johnny called back from outside of the bathroom. 

“Yeah!”

“Co-ol. Just remember. Shampoo and _then_ conditioner—“

“I know,” Taeyong laughed. He heard Johnny laugh back, then jog away to go do something else. Maybe something in the library—he hadn't seen much of it while cutting through the dark lobby, but he was sure that it required a lot of maintenance. Johnny had a lot of work to do, Taeyong assumed.

☾☀

“Johnny?”

The call echoed down the narrow staircase. Taeyong felt like a little child, clinging tiredly onto the corner of the wall with his hands covered by the long sleeves of a green turtleneck. His hair still fell stiffly onto his forehead, wet and chilly and sweet-smelling. But somehow it made him feel a little more warm, a little more safe. 

The bustling in the kitchen came to a standstill. Johnny trotted over to the stairwell and poked his head into view. “Hmm?”

“Where should I sleep?” Taeyong asked.

Johnny looked back into the kitchen for a second, pondering with a little pout on his face. 

“It might not be all that comfortable, but the couch upstairs has a pull-out, that might work for now. Or, there’s a big chaise in the library that I can bring you to—“

Taeyong perked up—he could barely _imagine_ it, waking up in golden morning light surrounded by the sweet, musky smell of old books. He'd read something like it once. 

“That sounds… nice,” he said, trying to subdue his excitement.

Johnny smiled at him so faintly that it wouldn't have been visible without the tiny light above them. “Okay. I’ll bring you over there.” 

Taeyong stumbled down the staircase, suddenly feeling his legs dare to give out. He clung onto the railing until his knuckles went white, then brought his other hand up over the first, forcing his body to stay up and making his arms just begin to tremble, then gingerly dropped his feet down to the next step, then the next. Johnny reached out and grabbed Taeyong’s waist as the mermaid set a trembling foot on the third-to-last step. 

“Tired?” Johnny asked, concern edging his voice.

Taeyong groaned in reply, feeling too nervous, too embarrassed, to say anything else. Johnny nodded and picked him up, all in one effortless swoop—a sudden arm around his back and knees and he was up in the air, being carried through the kitchen as if he was feather-light. He gasped a little bit, squirming over to gawp right at Johnny’s face. He'd read something like that, too.

“Your hair smells like a macaroon,” Johnny chuckled as he pushed the door open with his foot. 

Taeyong shriveled up his nose a bit. “Mak-ir-oohn?”

“It's a… coconut thingy. Not exactly a cookie, but it's close to it.” They passed through another doorway. What loomed ahead of them was the dark outline of what could've been a hundred bookcases, barely lit by the giant windows in the back of the room. A tiny metal staircase sat right in the center of the walkway, next to a little break in the shelves. Johnny strode past the vast expanse of books, his footsteps still light and stealthy in contrast to his warm, clear voice that reverberated through the room. “They’re pretty yummy. I'll have to make them when you're around someday.” He laughed a little bit more as he turned away from the stairs and into a wide, bookshelf-lined aisle. “I guess there _is_ a lot to show you, huh?”

Taeyong had begun to nod, but he was cut short as he felt something soft hit his back. He was being lowered onto something that he could only describe as being a mountain of pillows, and the excitement that rushed over him wiped out all his tiredness. He squirmed out from Johnny's arms and face-planted straight into a fluffy blanket, snatching it up and pulling it over his face; its soft white-and-black fur brushed lushly against his cheeks, and he smiled into it, throwing the rest of it over his legs. 

“It's so nice,” he chirped, feeling his heart race. “You made it so comfortable... I wouldn't want to leave.”

Johnny laughed a little bit. Taeyong felt the pillows sink next to him, and just as soon as he noticed did Johnny pull the blanket away from his face. 

“You're gonna suffocate if you do that,” he chided with a cheesy smile, falling back into the pillows. He sunk an elbow between a few of them, glancing up at the plants hanging from a little metal pipe above them. “But, yeah, I like giving people a safe spot. I want to make the public areas I can change just... a _little_ bit less intimidating or nerve-wracking. And a lot of people appreciate it, from what I know—and either way, it helps me and Mark—you know, my friend living on the other side of the library that I told you about. To me, that's all that matters.”

“That's sweet,” Taeyong mumbled, pulling the blanket over his nose again. Johnny shoved it back off. “I'm really excited to be here.”

“I'd hope you are. If you're delegating for a kingdom—“

“Oh, no. I'm not a delegate, I'm...” Taeyong thought for a second. Would Johnny want to know that an entire civilization wished for his death? Taeyong wouldn't, and even if he did, he didn’t want Johnny to worry about it. “I'm a guard. We get sent out to learn about the village when we are looking to be promoted higher into the royal court. So, right now... this is my education.” He was right in a sense. The royal court went to _a_ village to learn about the humans, from what Ten told him. 

But Johnny stared at him, wide-eyed and naïve. “That sounds insane.” Taeyong nodded. It certainly was. “It's late, though. We have all the time in the world to talk in the morning.”

“Ah.” Taeyong shuffled a little bit and shoved his forehead into a pillow. The last thing he would say to Johnny that night was a lie; that didn’t sit very well with him. “Fine.”

Johnny let out a little sigh as he got up from the couch. “Okay then. Goodnight, Taeyong. Sleep well.”

“G’night,” Taeyong whispered back. 

He heard Johnny's soft footsteps slowly fade away, and once Taeyong couldn't hear them anymore he looked up to find himself alone. Unsurprisingly alone, with Johnny less than a minute’s walk away, but still alone. He jumped to his knees, feeling his heart race in a different way. What if he woke up in a panic, breathing in thin air, looking around wildly to find himself lost in a sea of strangers? He was somewhat fine with strangers in the kingdom, but in the _village_, a world of unfamiliarity…

“Wait! Wait."

Johnny came running back. He poked his head past the bookcase and whispered, “What's wrong?”

“I... don't want to be by myself.”

He nodded a little bit, tapping his nails on the shelf in contemplation before strolling back to the couch. He plopped himself down in a gap between the pillows, sinking in so much that his knees almost touched his chest. He kicked one away, laughing. 

“I’ll figure out somewhere better for you soon,” he explained, playing with a tassel on one of the smaller pillows. Taeyong shook his hand free from the blanket and snatched it out of Johnny’s hand. Johnny flailed around, struggling to get out of his gap in the pillows to get it back; he reached over Taeyong’s chest, nearly slamming their heads together as the boy turned over to hold the pillow father away, laughing as Johnny leapt for it again. They tussled with each other like little kittens, gasping dramatically every time one of them took it from the other, trying not to laugh too loud even though every single sound they made still reverberated through the library. Taeyong’s years of training finally came in use—he was undeniably winning the wrestle, and the pillow barely left his grasp. 

But he soon felt the old tiredness he had felt on the top of the staircase kick in again, and he let it turn his movements sluggish and soft. He soon rolled onto his stomach, pillow in hand and fatigue nearly palpable on his eyelids. 

“What time is it?” he panted into the crook of Johnny’s neck, finally slinging the pillow away from them. 

“Really late. Or really early. Whichever way you want to think of it.”

“Ah-h,” Taeyong sighed. He pulled the blanket back onto his legs, feeling a bit too tired to move anymore. “Goo’night.”

Johnny just laughed a little, grabbing another pillow to hold in his arms. Taeyong bunched up some of the blanket and hugged it; he felt his hold on it loosen and his nose brush against Johnny's neck as he drifted off to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Mark hovered in front of the couch, playing with his hands behind his back nervously, staring like a detective at the still-asleep Taeyong. He scrunched up his nose, pushing his glasses farther up his face, letting a confused look slip onto his face before going emotionless again. 

“Well..?” Johnny squinted against the early dawn light, trying not to laugh. 

“I...” The boy shook out his head a little, his eyes widening in shock for a quick second. “That’s a mermaid.” 

“_Yeah._” 

“Yeah... Wait one second, I just gotta...” Mark’s voice trailed off as he slowly sunk down to the ground, criss-crossing his legs and planting his head into his palm. He let out a half-groan, half-sigh that lasted a good few seconds. “Holy shit. It’s like the ocean read too much Hans Christian Andersen.”

“I know,” Johnny agreed, finding the reference somewhat fitting. He looked over at Taeyong, still fast asleep, his hand still clasped around a pillow and his tiny legs entangled in the blanket. It was as if he was _glowing_ in the sun—his unreasonably vibrant blue hair glistened in a way Johnny never thought possible, framing his freckled face with frizzy sleep-tousled strands that, for some God-forsaken reason, looked no less than perfect on him. 

“I’m gonna show him around for a couple months. He’ll be here every once in a while.”

“Okay, sure, whatever—but let me get this straight, though.” Mark looked up, clamping his hands together as he put on his detective façade once more. “You’ve seen this dude out there on the beach for _five days_ and he _just_ decides to give you the schedule for this?”

Johnny shrugged. “It makes sense, though. Like… they don’t usually have legs so he might have needed to get used to them, and breathing is different because, you know, gills, and... he needed to be in safe hands, so I bet they did research before setting all the times and stuff.”

“Hmmph. Yeah.”

“So.” Johnny smiled a little slyly. “Want me to wake him up so you can say hi?”

Mark’s eyes went wide again, and he clambered up to his feet, nearly stumbling out of the nook as he did so. “N—no, I can wait. Let him wake up naturally or whatever. I have to… put… book stuff away anyways, so, yeah, uh…”

“He’s not gonna bite you! It’s okay,” Johnny laughed in an attempt to console his friend. It didn’t help very much; Mark just grimaced in response. “Honestly. I promise. He’s super sweet. And anything you say will probably interest him.”

“Really? The mermaids are that sheltered down there?” 

“I guess so.” He leaned onto his elbows, tilting his head so that it was nearly level with Taeyong’s. The mermaid’s lips were half-parted in a comfortable smile. Johnny subconsciously smiled back. “But I guess it would be a bit hard to learn about the land from their kingdom. Communication wouldn’t be easy, so I guess they just stick to what they know. And I guess there are things that just need to be experienced to understand. Like smells. Taeyong hasn’t… smelled much of anything except the ocean.”

“I’d be having a sensory overload if I was him.” 

“You absolutely would,” Johnny teased. Mark scrunched his nose up, faking annoyance.

“Well, if he isn’t overwhelmed already, we should eat breakfast by the big window upstairs. You can show him the village, he can ask questions. Boom, perfect start.” 

“Sounds good. French toast?”

“Honestly, if that was my first human meal, I’d probably fall in love with whoever made it for me. Especially if it’s that, uh, fancy ciabatta stuff.”

“Well, you’re lucky I have it. I’ll pick some pears, too.”

Mark's head poked up. “Oo-oh. For the syrup thingy?”

“Well, it's a _reduction,_ but close enough.”

☾☀

Taeyong shifted in his sleep, nuzzling his head further into the blanket. Johnny laughed to himself, thinking of just how nervous Mark was around the boy. Maybe it was a little reasonable to be afraid of a magical water creature, he thought, but was Taeyong really that scary? He could barely fathom being intimidated by the mermaid, not after giving him the flowers.

He lowered his head to the pillow. Taeyong’s hair had fallen into his eyes and his little nose was pressed up against the blanket—he looked comfortable, and seeing that made Johnny’s heart feel even warmer. 

“Good morning,” he crooned, lightly tapping Taeyong’s cheek.

The mermaid yawned in response, stretching out his arms and wiggling his toes. He scrunched his eyes shut before finally opening them, blinking a few times to clear up his vision. Sunlight struck his face as he rolled onto his back; his eyes, wide and awestruck as he took in his surroundings, turned a pretty golden shade in the light.

“Good morning, too,” he drawled through another tiny yawn, playing with the sleeves of the forest green turtleneck. He looked over with a giddy smile before gawping a bit and tugging at the collar of Johnny’s shirt. “Wo-oah. That’s so pretty.”

Johnny smiled a little smugly. He had tried to dress fancier for some strange reason that morning. That endeavor resulted in a nearly-oversized pink-and-white collared shirt that he had forgotten about in the back of his closet—why had he done that? The rose embroidered on the front pocket looked great—tucked into a pair of classily washed-out black jeans, plus some super comfy socks Mark’s grandma knitted him for Christmas. It was strange; he was just showing Taeyong around the village that morning, why start worrying about fashion now? 

“Thank you. I forgot about it until this morning,” he said, trying not to sound too prideful. “But, it’s time for breakfast. We can talk when we’re eating, but for now, would you like to help bring the trays upstairs?”

“Of course.” The mermaid rubbed his eyes and sat himself up, stretching out his tiny legs as if they were a bit sore. He nodded contentedly when he was done. “Where do we go?”

“To the kitchen!” Johnny called out, jumping to his feet and jogging to the end of the nook. Taeyong stumbled over to him, trying his best to steady himself—he was already getting a bit better with balance, even if he tottered once in a while—and they paraded past the aisles of old-smelling books and into Johnny’s part of the building. 

Mark was filling up one of two tall glasses of milk with the big pitcher he kept in Johnny’s fridge—his own fridge was more for flowers and fresh fruit from the backyard gardens, just like how the rest of his kitchen was more like a miniature of Taeil’s greenhouse rather than an actual kitchen. 

“Ah-h, what’s the second one for?” Johnny teased, internally shuddering at the thought of drinking so much milk at one time. A glass that size would probably leave him sick for days. 

“Well, I don’t know if, uh… if Taeyong ever tried milk before, so it’s for him. I mean, milk is one of the great joys of village life, so…” Mark froze up and put on a smile to hide his nervousness as Taeyong wandered into the room, looking around at the deadnettle plants next to the wide window and the tiny cacti sitting on the sill by the sink. “Good morning.”

Taeyong waved back with a grin. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said sweetly. “Thank you for the milk, too.”

Mark feebly nodded back, intimidated into silence. Johnny let out a little snort as he covered his face, leaning onto the kitchen island and looking over the trays. He wondered if Taeyong would like it—what was he able to eat? What if he was allergic to something, and he didn’t even know it? Either way, Taeyong’s excited look as he looked over the food made him feel that maybe, just maybe, there wasn’t all that much to worry about. 

“I’ll take this one,” Johnny explained, tapping the edge of the tray in front of him—the one that had all the French toast on it, dusted with an unhealthy amount of powdered sugar. “Taeyong, you can grab the one with the toppings, and Mark, you’ll bring up the drinks and plates and stuff. Sound good?” The two nodded—Taeyong did so much that he had to lean onto the island to not fall over. “Alright—Tae, go up the stairs by the nook, and right as you get to the top you’ll see chairs near the big window, and that’s where we’re gonna eat.”

“Ah-h,” Taeyong remarked giddily, taking up his tray. He steadied himself quickly and made his way into the lobby. 

Johnny smiled fondly at the door for a few seconds before giving a sly glance back at Mark. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

Mark shrugged. “Huh. Maybe we’ll be friends before he has to leave.”

A knot tied itself in Johnny’s stomach, but he nodded back anyways. He watched Mark grab something from a shelf by the stairs, one of his old pairs of glasses with the lenses knocked out. It was a circular frame made of worn-out brass, thick temple tips and thin rims, the types of glasses that Mark had been wearing since childhood. 

“You should wear these,” Mark advised him, dangling the frames in front of his face. “It’ll work with your…” He looked at Johnny’s shirt, then at his socks, and clicked his tongue. “Look.”

“Thanks a lot,” Johnny laughed, grabbing it from Mark’s hand and shoving it onto his face before taking up the tray of french toast. 

☾☀

“Then what can you see from the windows on the other side?” Taeyong asked through a mouthful of ciabatta bread and pear, his eyes shining in such a way that it really did look like stars lived in them. 

“On the western side is the farms, mostly,” Mark explained, looking proud for no real reason. “But there’s big flowery meadows and dirt trails, mostly used by cyclers in the afternoons.” Taeyong listened intently, letting out a little _oo-oh._ “Otherwise, most of what you’ll really want to see is out east.”

The mermaid visibly deflated at that. He gulped down his food and mumbled, “The meadows still sound nice, though.”

“Then… we’ll go out there in the mornings someday,” Johnny concluded. “You can take Mark’s bike. He’s a bit rusty with bicycling, anyways—“

“Are you kidding? All I _do_ on the weekends is bicycle!”

“Yeah, bicycle back and forth from your _boyfriend’s_ farm,” Johnny teased. Mark scrunched his nose up at him. “That’s, like, six minutes at most, you weakling.”

“Boyfriend?” Taeyong butted in, asking it as if the word was foreign to him.

Mark’s eyes went wide. “Yeah..?” he said hesitantly. 

“What does that mean?”

“Ah, uh… having a boyfriend or girlfriend, it’s kinda like being married. Without the legal contracts, though,” Johnny tried to explain, watching Mark sink in his seat and shake his head out of the corner of his eye. “No big weddings or huge ceremonies or anything. Just love, and happiness.”

“Alternatively, it’s a friend that you can kiss without social stigma,” Mark spoke into his hands. “Self-explanatory, in a sense.”

Taeyong made a little _ah-h_ noise and turned to look back at the big window next to them. He put his wrists on his crossed legs and stared at the clouds floating over the line of trees near the ocean. Amber light brightened his face and turned his hair a gorgeous sparkly aqua color, revealed the sunspots that flecked his jawline and cheeks and the sparse freckles that laid on one specific part of his neck, right next to his Adam’s apple. 

Johnny felt Mark kick his ankle from under the coffee table. He gawped at the boy, who bobbed his head at him to try and enunciate some point he was trying to make without speaking. 

“What?” Johnny whispered.

Mark rolled his eyes. “Stop _staring_,” he mouthed back. 

“I’m not staring, dummy—“

Taeyong barely looked back, and Mark panicked, grabbing up his utensils and prodding at a cube of pear with his knife in a failed attempt to act natural. As Taeyong went back to eating his French toast, Mark stayed frozen with the knife still in the pear and disappointment in his eyes. 

The mermaid kept smiling to himself; it left Johnny feeling a little nervous. Was Mark being that loud? God, that’s why he could never trust the boy, even his jests and uncalled-for bickering caused trouble—and if Taeyong did, how much did he hear? Would he think that Johnny was staring at him like how a strange infatuated knight would stare at the princess singing from her tower balcony for the next two months? What would he think of Johnny then? Or... was Mark even joking? Oh god, oh god, was he really staring? And if so, _why?_

Johnny pronged his French toast dejectedly, barely wanting to look up from his plate, not wanting to see either of his friends watching him or laughing or whispering to one another. _Please, everything was going so well before breakfast,_ he pleaded to any spirits in the world that would listen. _Don’t let Taeyong hate me._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> taeyong begins to embrace his inner soft boy, and renjun just laughs at him lol

“He’s always making sure I’m comfortable and having fun, and it’s just such a sweet gesture, every time he does it. And he just cares so much, and he’d never let me forget a single thing, he’d always try his hardest to let me learn everything I possibly can. I know it,” Taeyong babbled, listening to the long chain of words bounce through the heavy air and off the cold walls of the cave above Renjun’s office instead of reverberating through a cavernous room of warmth and light air. 

Renjun listened intently, wringing out the lacy patterns on the sleeves of his button-down shirt with the beginning of a smirk on his face. And even seeing that was strange. If he were to talk to someone, he’d usually go to Ten like his friend did so many times with him. And that option, sadly, was out of the picture. 

“Aw-w, sweet… and _what_ you two do today?” Renjun interrogated.

Taeyong had just gotten back from his third visit, and although he knew it was best to talk about it while it was fresh in his memory, the thought of it made his head whirl again. “He took me to this tea store on Mirth Street—which is his favorite street name in the village, he told me—and then to this beautiful flower park somewhere nearby and we went for a walk around the trail a few times, and I know I kept stopping to see every dog because, wow! They all look so different! But he let me say hello to all of them, which was so nice, and he pointed out all the different types of butterflies in the butterfly garden—“

“Oh, god, yes, he’s innocent. That’s enough proof right there,” Renjun groaned, leaning his head against the cave like Taeyong’s words were slowly killing him. 

“See? I told you,” Taeyong said back smugly. 

“Hmmph, you did. But,” the boy continued, readjusting his wire glasses and staring intently at Taeyong, “I’ll tell you something new. You’re in love.”

Taeyong felt his heart surge in some strange way. “No?” he laughed.

“You are. And so is he. _Wow_, head-over-heels in nine days, that’s almost impressive—“

“No.” Taeyong laughed awkwardly to fill the gap between his words, where he was trying to compile his thoughts. “No, that’s not happening. I like the scenery more than him, and he’s just showing me around.”

Renjun tried his absolute hardest not to laugh out loud. “Sure, sure, showing you around, a’ight. Well, I need to ask you a question, then.” Taeyong nodded nervously. “I thought you were some sort of fierce, strong warrior. Why are you always acting so _cutesy_ with him? Going to tea stores and flower parks? Eating breakfasts in the library garden?”

Taeyong snorted at him. “I don’t act cutesy.” 

“Wel-l, maybe if you didn’t tell me everything else, I might have believed you,” Renjun jeered back, looking at him with a smug grin. “But it’s so obvious. You have to have noticed it.”

“I didn’t. And… I don’t… know? I don’t know why I do that. I guess I’ve never felt the need to act any other way since I’ve stayed with him. He just makes me happy. Happier than usual. Like, we sat on a bench in the park, and… it was such a small gesture, but I was feeling sort of nervous while looking at all the people, like a realization had set in. There were so many of them. I was overwhelmed, and, for some reason, I told Johnny that. Maybe because I’m _being soft around him_ or something. So he… he put me in his lap and held my hand and just talked, not about anything in particular, but talked so I could focus on something else. And just _that_… the way he helped me without even hesitating, it made me really happy.”

Renjun stared him down for a long, long second before slamming his head onto his hands, shaking as he cackled away at Taeyong’s ego—his glasses fell into the water, and Taeyong caught them before they could sink any farther, feeling a sore pain in the back of his throat. 

“Oh-h, boy. You oblivious _bastard_,” Renjun concluded, talking through laughter. “You two are either really, really starved for affection or completely infatuated. And don’t tell me _you’re_ affection-starved when you have Ten hanging off your shoulder every day, playing with your hair, cooing in your—“

“Okay! I get it,” Taeyong snapped. He handed Renjun his glasses back, then crossed his arms in front of his chest. “But… you _really_ think stuff like that just… automatically shows he feels something?”

Renjun rolled his eyes so far up that it looked like they were just about to roll back into his skull. “You don’t know much about the human condition, do you? Land-roamers don’t show affection all that easily, usually. And if they do—and by that I mean hugging and hand-holding, not _whispering sweet nothings in you ear_ or shit like that—they’re unnaturally affectionate, or, they’re under the age of thirteen. So, yes, he likes you, probably likes you a lot, and judging from the way you talk about this guy… you’re very oblivious about your own emotions.”

“Fine,” Taeyong said, a little more hesitant than he wanted to sound.

Renjun’s teasing grin immediately faded away. “Wh—“

“I just… feel bad. I won’t be able to see or talk to him for much longer, and if that’s truly how he feels, then what is he gonna think of me? He’ll hate me. And I thought I wouldn’t feel like this. I thought… Doyoung—“

“Aw-w,” Renjun pouted sarcastically. Taeyong glared back at him, wishing he could slip back into the water and swim away from any further confrontation, but he stopped himself from doing so as Renjun continued: “Listen, feelings change! Tae, we are all constantly changing individuals; you don’t need to stay loyal to holding out some old crush because, well, you can’t do that, for all you know they aren’t in love with you and it’s hard and unhealthy to keep on loving someone that doesn’t reciprocate. So let your feelings, just… ebb away, and let them flow in with a different idea.”

“Huh,” Taeyong remarked. “I guess so. I’ll pay more attention Saturday.”

“Please do, for the sake of both of us. And also, don’t worry about the whole two-months-only issue. I’m _always_ here to help you out.” The boy grinned as Taeyong let out a relieved sigh, feeling a weight he had never known existed lift off his shoulders. He put the towel back on one of the stone ledges, waved goodbye to the library boy, and made his way out of the cave.

☾☀

From the steps of the lowest seats in the stadium, Taeyong helplessly watched his students run rampant. He had always preferred to give apprentices under his teachings free time to mingle and learn off each other, since the first class he ever taught had grown very close through those extra 15 minutes. The fault in his philosophy, though, came from the fact that for the first three minutes of the session, two of them had been bickering about who could practice with the nunchucks, one had been watching on and not doing anything to help except laugh and widen his eyes at some choice words, and one was completely avoiding the situation at large to stab at the water with the spearing techniques they had learnt that afternoon. Taeyong had waited long enough in the hopes that they’d finally knock some sense in their own heads and learn to cooperate, but it seemed they were too immature to even try.

“It’s not my fault I was _sick_ that week, headass!” Lucas growled into Hendery’s face, nearly in hysterics. His fists were balling up behind his back like he was scared of starting violence, even though he was most likely able to slam his peer into the seaweed-covered ground so fast that it would cause riptides for the next few days. 

Speaking of which, the seaweed was overgrowing, Taeyong noted as he pushed himself up with a bemused huff. So were the corals on the stadium columns. He would have to tell the manager at some point. He already had too much work on his plate that week to be dealing with stadium maintenance. 

“How don’t you know what you’re doing?” Hendery gawked back, disgusted. “You’ve used them two fucking weeks straight. Are you really that slow?” Lucas really took that to heart, grabbing at the ends of his pushed-back hair like he did every time he and Hendery’s arguments rose to a breaking point. Yangyang was still standing there, genuinely doing nothing, just watching with gritted teeth; Jisung across the stadium was still fencing the air, using good wrist movement and posture but bad team cooperation skills. Taeyong would be doing the same if he was in that poor boy’s position.

Yangyang looked up to glance right up at Taeyong’s tired, impatient stare and grit his teeth even more, then looked back and quickly grabbed Hendery away from throwing a punch at Lucas. “No! No! Stop that, words not fists, remember?”

“Yes, but using _words that help,_” Taeyong scolded in a deadpan voice, hearing his voice boom across the stadium. God, why couldn’t he just go back to the village? His students were only getting worse. 

“Lucas. Hendery.” Lucas stared at him with dramatically wide eyes; Hendery tucked his hands behind his back and stared at the seaweed waving in the water. “This is an elementary conflict. Your words are just as bad as using fists. And if you need me to dumb it down for you, which I’m _very sure you need,_ you’re trying to solve a disagreement that requires _compromise_ with bad words and hatred. That’s not how things work in the world.” They were barely able to comprehend his words before he kept going: “And you, Yangyang.” The kid looked up, worry in his eyes. “Stop standing around and letting things be until they get violent. You need to learn how to de-escalate a situation at the start. Be the arbiter. Help instead of cheering it on.” The boy whimpered back an _okay._

“Thank you,” Taeyong said, somewhat relieved. “I don’t like assigning you what to work on in free practice, but…” He grabbed the nunchucks up and dropped them in Hendery’s hands, leaving Lucas’ mouth gaping. “You need practice, you weren’t doing well with them in the review.” Hendery smiled back flatly and hurried away. 

“Yangyang, practice with Jisung— and please, go ask him for help, you're not using any correct stances.” Yangyang shrugged in agreement and nodded, taking his time to swim over to the boy. 

And just like that, Taeyong was finally able to have a good conversation with Lucas. He let out a huff of slight disapproval and crossed his arms. “Listen, I know you’re eager, but—“

“But it’s a team game and we’re all supposed to work together and we should respect each others’ wishes and needs and work together to fulfill those needs as well as fulfilling our own,” Lucas mumbled word-for-word, quick and exasperated and strained. “Sir, I feel like I should be better than where I’m at now.”

“You still have two years until the final test,” Taeyong said. Lucas nodded, biting his lip and furrowing his eyebrows. “You have a long time to practice. And there’s more to this experience than _getting better,_ and you know that. You don’t have to be perfect at every single thing I teach you. God, _I’m_ not perfect at some of the things I need to teach, if that isn’t obvious enough.” The boy nodded again. It always felt strange to reprimand someone taller than him, and Lucas towered over him even more than Johnny did— _no,_ he scolded himself,_ no thinking about Johnny, this right here right now, this is important._

“But, am I at least doing okay?” Lucas asked hesitantly, looking down at Taeyong’s eyes like he was looking up to the stars for answers. 

“Physically, you’re exceeding expectations. Of course, you know that, right? You’re not as bad at this as you think you are, there’s no need to worry about how fast you’re picking something up or how smooth you can make a move on your second or third try. You have plenty of time… and plenty attitude changes you’ve been ignoring to impose. And if you balance out your attention, you just might become a great student.”

“Th—then what am I right now?” Lucas gawped, the beginning of a smile showing up on his face. 

“Eh-h…” Taeyong tipped his head to the side in contemplation, trying not to laugh at the stupid look on Lucas’ face. “So-so.”

“Aw! Sweet!” the boy cheered, pumping his fists up with about as much force as he could. “Thanks!” he added hastily before zooming away and shouting after Jisung: “Hey! Hey! Get that su-wohrd ready because I’m gonna _dominate this fencing round!_”

Taeyong watched, finally feeling a bit of pride in his students as the giant toppled the lanky Jisung to the ground, making the two of them laugh and Yangyang freak out since the spear was dangerously close to cutting off Jisung’s whole face. All of them went wild as Jisung, with surprisingly little difficulty, bent the whole spear into an arc like a piece of rubber and told them it was a fake practice sword. Satisfied, Taeyong decided to make his way back to the seats. 

At some point, a blur too small to be any of his students whooshed across the entrance to the left of him—he could barely see it in his peripheral vision, but he was sure that something was there. He turned around to find the area empty, and stared at it a few seconds longer to make sure. Still, nothing. 

It was better to be safe than sorry, though. “Ah-hp, no sneaking around the stadium until 5,” he called out to whatever delinquent that could’ve been roaming the area, “warrior program training ’til 4:50 and cool-off for the next ten—“

Someone poked the sides of his stomach—hard, too, making him jump in shock and let out a little _eep!_—then grabbed him by the waist, pulling him backward into a tiny chest covered in soft silky fabric. The same hands that prodded his sides with their sharp little nails flew over his eyes. 

“Guess who?” chimed the unmistakable, squeaky voice of Ten into Taeyong’s ear, laughing like he had just seen a human get knocked right over by a high-tide wave. “I’d say something about the cool-off time, but I think that’s a bit too obvious, so…”

“Oh my god,” Taeyong groaned, batting Ten’s hands away from his eyes and forcing the boy to put them elsewhere—he settled for the waist again, setting his pouting face onto Taeyong’s shoulder. Barely a minute had passed, yet Taeyong already couldn’t tell if he was happy to see Ten again or not. “That’s probably the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Wha-at, you didn’t like it?” Ten teased, rolling his eyes and prodding his nails somewhat painfully into Taeyong’s stomach over and over again. “Wow. What a _joykill—_”

“I never said it wasn’t funny,” Taeyong joked back, earning Ten’s mock look of approval. 

“Hmmh, I guess not. How’s your break?” Ten asked, his voice verging on a soft coo as he ruffled up the side of Taeyong’s hair—a two in one, he realized. Maybe Renjun really was onto something.

“Wouldn’t call it a break, if I’m being honest,” Taeyong shrugged. He was, in a sense, being honest—sneaking out of the Kingdom every day to find evidence against an impending murder and fall in love with the defendant in question wasn’t the best possible break he could wish for. “Doyoung’s been giving me so much paperwork that I’m barely able to relax for more than an hour. And the students are just as annoying as they were before. Maybe they’re getting worse, I can’t tell. I’ve been around them for too long to notice.”

Ten chuckled a bit, watching as Lucas changed position in the fencing round and saw the two of them across the stadium. He squinted a bit to get a better look, but his brain quickly registered just who was clinging onto Taeyong, and the pointy metal spear fell out of his hand and plopped into the seaweed. The sounds of Jisung and Yangyang’s precautionary yelling echoed through the stadium. Hendery then gazed up at them before quickly focusing back onto his nunchuck-twirling, grinning to himself like he had just snuck a look at a cursed object. Ten looked over to Taeyong and Taeyong looked back at Ten, and the two rolled their eyes and laughed. 

“Yeah, I can’t deal with all those kids anymore,” Ten drawled, going back to absentmindedly stroking a finger down Taeyong’s collarbone. “So obnoxious. I’m too old for it. Hell, I can’t even _imagine_ how you’re still alive after lessons.”

“Old? Didn’t you just get into the Court?”

Ten froze up for a second. “Well, yeah, but still,” he said to make his quick recovery. “Pretty old, you know.” 

Taeyong rolled his eyes at him. “Whatever you want to tell yourself.”

“Stop trying to flatter me, it’s not gonna work,” Ten said, clearly flattered judging by the smug look on his face. He squirmed over to cling onto Taeyong’s arm, nearly dragging them both down in the process. He pointed up at the clock tower. “You said cool-off is 4:50? You’ve got a minute left.”

“Huh. I guess we do.” Taeyong shrugged Ten off his shoulder. “You probably shouldn’t stay around, you’ll distract them all.”

“_Or_ my mere humble presence will make them do better?” he teased. Taeyong glared at him. “Eh-h. Fine. You know them better than I do.” The boy leaned himself onto Taeyong’s chest for a final hug, fluffing up the back of his hair roughly. “Before I go, though… I guess I’ll thank you for helping me. You were sweet for taking the case on.”

“Nobody else was going to,” Taeyong said modestly, trying to avoid noticing the pit in his stomach. Lying to Ten, something he’d never thought of doing before—it made his head whirl. “It was better to start early.” 

Ten nodded proudly, tacking on a sly whisper of “Let’s make that boy over there _really angry,_” before giving Taeyong a quick peck on the cheek, nipping at the corner of his bottom lip for extra measure before pulling away. Taeyong gawked at him, bewildered and struggling not to look unamused, fighting against the urge to rub sorely at the mark. 

“What was—“ 

“_Thank_ you!” the boy reinstated with a laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, Taeyong could see Lucas staring once more, looking like the world was crumbing just before him. The results of the ploy were sufficient.

“Well, then, _à toute à l’heure, mon amoureux,_” Ten leered before darting away, waving a goodbye with his little hand before slipping through the entryway.

“You better tell me what that means tomorrow,” Taeyong yelled after him, feeling just as tired as he was when free practice had begun.


	10. Chapter 10

By his fourth night in the library, Taeyong was beginning to get undeniably used to the nighttime showers, and he had good reason. The honey-lavender soap and _whatever-a-macaroon-was-supposed-to-be_ hair products had just enough scent to them as to stimulate but not overwhelm his senses, and the wonderful sparkly-clean feeling he had when he woke up in the mornings were priceless—although mornings were already priceless without it, just waking up to find Johnny still asleep and cuddling into him until it was time to get ready was enough for him. God, the boy was so comfortable, like a physical and mental safe space for Taeyong to latch onto. Hugging the pillows on the library couch like had done his first days in the village paled in comparison. 

A thought came to him as he scrubbed at the bottom of his foot, struggling to stay upright without leaning onto the tile wall of the shower—was Johnny even _okay_ with that? Was Johnny sleeping next to him just because Taeyong had gotten used to it, or had he fallen into the habit as well? He didn’t want his friend to be doing something he found uncomfortable, but he didn’t exactly know how to ask about it. After all, humans don’t usually show much affection, as Renjun told him—that must’ve meant they didn’t like to speak of affection either, right?

A little thrumming knock came from the door, breaking through his nervous thoughts. “Ta-eyong,” came Johnny’s honeyed, singsong voice from the hall. “Tell me when you’re done, I have something to show you.”

“Ah, okay,” Taeyong chirped back. The question would be an easy one to bring up, he realized. Johnny knew that he wasn’t a human, that they grew up in different environments. He also knew Taeyong was curious—that he constantly questioned and pondered everything around him. The boy would be okay with it; the real worry was all on how he would answer.

☾☀

“What’s it supposed to smell like?” Taeyong asked, still sniffing at the warm, woody perfume that Johnny had spritzed onto his wrists.

“Hmm… I’m not an expert, but I think it’s something like chestnut, vanilla, anise, some other wood oil thingies—which, wood has oils! I would’ve never guessed!” Johnny explained excitedly, pulling at the collar of the oversized shirt Taeyong was wearing to add a little bit more to the back of his neck. Although Taeyong didn’t exactly know what any of those things except vanilla were, he nodded as if he understood it all, amused by his friend's cheesy enthusiasm. 

Johnny struggled to put the tiny cap on the bottle in the dim light of the bedroom. Soon, he gave up, plopping it onto the mattress and running a hand through Taeyong’s damp hair instead. 

“Do you like it?”

“I do,” Taeyong grinned.

His attention was quickly caught by the pretty paintings on the walls of Johnny’s bedroom, hung up just above the tall open windows that took up the rest of the wall-space. The room radiated Johnny’s personality even more than the detailed, soft-colored landscapes did, from dim amber lanterns hanging off the curtain rods and constellations painted on the ceiling to what could’ve been a hundred pillows and blankets on his puffy, comfortable bed, near the circular accent chair, in the corner by the windows. It all smelled a bit like Johnny, too—crisp cotton sheets and vanilla, accented with some sort of cool sharp smell that he had never encountered anywhere else. He let the calming smells and sights swim in his tired mind, kicked his feet against the fuzzy lavender rug and leaned back onto Johnny’s chest. He looked up to see his friend staring back, grinning fondly at him.

“Are you okay with this?” Taeyong asked quietly, letting the question slip off his tongue before he even had the chance to think it through. 

Johnny’s grin faltered. “With what?” the boy said back.

“W…” Taeyong had barely realized just how muddled his thoughts were. He had to fumble around with the frayed ends of his thoughts to even make something slightly coherent: “With… you being—no, with… With the closeness.” He felt his face going red from embarrassment; he bowed his head down to his chest to not draw any attention to it, already feeling that the awkward position would give him a crick in his neck.

Johnny snorted a little at him. “You’re gonna hurt yourself,” he warned, gently pulling the mermaid back by his shoulders. “But of course it’s fine. In fact, I look forward to it, a lot.”

“Really?” 

“Yes, really! I would _not_ pass up a good chance for a cuddle—neither would anyone I know, if I’m being honest.”

Taeyong’s jaw dropped. “Renjun lied, then?” he whispered in shock.

“Depends. What did he say?”

“Th—that humans don’t show physical affection very much…”

“Well… that’s not really a _lie,_ just a little fallacy,” Johnny snickered, falling back onto the mattress and pulling Taeyong down with him. The mermaid let out a little squeak, then some laughter as he flipped onto his stomach, clinging onto Johnny like coral on a giant rock. “There’s just so many people in the world, so many different levels of formality and strictness, so much work to be done, that it’s impossible to be so affectionate with everyone we talk to. So, when the world around us feels cold and uncaring, we go back to our core, go to our closest friends, our family, our partners. _That’s_ where most of the affection lies.”

No matter how sweet it sounded, Taeyong knew that there _must_ have been something deeper to it—some hidden meaning Johnny was struggling to say outright. “That means I'm... in your core?” he thought out loud. 

The boy contemplated it for a second. “I guess so,” was what he landed on, scrunching his nose like he was having a hard time comprehending the words coming out of his own mouth. “Being so close and showing you all the things I love here, it makes me feel like you're someone I've known since childhood, yet never really met face-to-face before. Like a pen-pal that I invited to the village after years of letter-writing. The affection feels natural, is what I’m saying.”

Taeyong lifted his head up from Johnny’s shoulder to give the boy a nod. Somehow, he allowed his gaze to catch on to the way Johnny’s lips parted in some sheepish way, the uncertainty that wavered in his soft pretty eyes; then to the brass wire frames that had slid up over his eyebrows and the strands of hair that were caught under the bridge of them, then to the rest of his fluffy black hair that had fallen away from his forehead, and the big strange prick-points in his earlobes, one of which, the one he had never really seen up-close, holding a tiny iridescent gem in the clasps of a golden frame. It sparkled like the sands in the hourglass sitting on the shelf in Taeyong’s room, glinting in the dim lantern-light like a spell was forever encasing itself around it.

His conscious jerked awake, and he tore his eyes away, his face going red-hot. He’d heard Mark and the boy whispering the first day—something of _staring_ and _not staring_ and other muddled words he couldn’t understand. Had they noticed something about him? Had he been staring the whole time? Maybe he had; maybe it was his subconscious, the subconscious that was falling in love like Renjun had told him. But _that_. That, that was almost entirely conscious thought. He was staring on purpose now; god, his whole brain was falling in love.

“It’s an opal,” Johnny informed him, closing his eyes and speaking like his mind was somewhere else completely. “I had my ears pierced maybe five years ago; it was my Christmas present from Mark. I usually don’t wear earrings on both ears anymore, but maybe I—”

“I’m sorry,” Taeyong blurted out, cringing at the way his voice trembled. He buried his head back in Johnny’s shoulder, futilely hoping that he could stay like that for the rest of the night.

“It’s okay,” Johnny mumbled back. He brought a hand up to brush through Taeyong’s hair again, talking just to fill the silence: “I thought this would be a better place to sleep, rather than the chaise. It’s a little more comfortable than lying on a bunch of pillows, right?” Taeyong nodded, feeling a whirlwind of emotions ball up in the back of his throat. His breath came out in a little shudder.

Johnny froze up. “A... Are you crying?” he asked.

Taeyong nodded again, laughing shakily, hoping it didn't sound too hysterical.

“A-ah, uh, oh no,” Johnny said in a panic, rubbing one of his hands up and down Taeyong’s back so therapeutically that it made the mermaid start sniffling even more. “Don't worry, it's okay, it's okay. You can cry, it's fine, and you don't need to say anything at all. I don't need to know why, if you aren't okay with saying anything. Is that alright?”

“Yeah,” he whimpered. Water filled his eyes in a way he'd never felt before, and he struggled to blink the uncomfortable tears out of his eyes. “Oh—this is so weird.”

“I know. It's okay, it's okay—“

“I'm so sorry you have to deal with this, god, I...”

“No! Tae, you're in an unfamiliar place, and even if it's setting in just now and you didn't feel it before, it's okay and it's reasonable.”

Taeyong let out a groan, feeling too choked up to protest with real words, and he flopped off of Johnny, rubbing furiously at his eyes. God, why couldn't the boy—why _didn’t_ the boy—why couldn't Johnny just press kisses on his flushed cheeks and pull him back into a hug and intertwine their legs together? No, that was all too much, too much for humans, he was sure of it.

So he just laid there, hands to his cheeks and ankles crossed, hyperventilating and trying to focus on the way Johnny played with the long hair that fell over his ear, the way the boy's nails brushed against the side of his cheek every once in a while, leaving his nerves to spark with energy in their wake. His breath started steadying at some point—it could've been minutes by then, but he swore that tears kept coming for what felt like hours—and he turned his head to see Johnny's worried face turn to a slightly less worried smile.

“Do you want to wash up, or do you just wanna go to sleep? Either is fine—“

“Sleep,” Taeyong mumbled, giving his eyes a final rub and holding both hands against his reddened tear-streaked face for a second. “So weird,” he said again.

“Humans are weird,” Johnny joked back, smiling at Taeyong as the mermaid buried his head into the boy’s chest. 

Taeyong hummed his agreement, already too tired to stay awake for much longer. “Thank you.”

“It's okay, don't thank me. You needed to,” Johnny cooed—not in the saccharine, drawling way that he was used to hearing from Ten, but something more calm and natural and relaxed. Taeyong felt his heart lurch at the sound of it; he wrapped his arm tightly around Johnny’s waist once again and let out a happy sigh. “A-ah, are you gonna fall asleep on me? Do you want a real pillow? Or is this fine for you?”

“This is okay,” Taeyong mumbled. He was getting drowsier by the second, sleep lapping at the edges of his brain like a rock swallowed up at high tide. “Just… keep talking. Please.”

“Ah. Okay, okay. About myself, or about the—“

“Anything,” he whispered, curling up a bit closer.

“Okay. Then… well, I know that I like to talk, that I’m a talker, Mark tells me it all the time. But I got it from my grandpa, when I was super young. When I lived in Seville—and it does seem so far away, but it is only a day’s worth of travel by train. Those things make the world seem so small, right? But in Seville I would visit my grandpa every day, and behind his house was a tiny backyard, kind of like the one behind the library, but even smaller. And there, gramps would grow all these different plants, like calendulas and forget-me-nots and tulips, and he’d always say that the first tulip he grew was from a bulb that he found lying on a dirt road in in Denmark. There was a stone right in the center of his garden that was exactly where he had planted it. Every time I went there, while my parents were out at work or shopping or anything, gramps would bring me to the yard and _quiz_ me on all the plants, and after a few years I knew them all by heart. And after that we’d sit there in the middle of the garden underneath this arch that had all this bright orange and purple bougainvillea hanging off it, and we’d sit there and drink lime blossom tea from fancy porcelain cups—every time he made it he’d put _just_ enough honey into it to make it taste delicious. And there, we just talked; we talked about things we wished to do in life, whether we had the chance to do them or not, and we pondered over news and made up our own fairy-tales based off the butterflies and bees and other weird bugs that came into the garden, and when I was _really_ little and it got to around dusk, he let me romp around and catch fireflies, and I talked to every one of them I caught. Some of them would look back at me, and then… then I would name them, wish them good luck, then, just… send them off. I guess I still do that now, though. But in that garden, maybe I felt a little more mature because of those conversations about politics and society, yeah, but gramps let me still be young. He let me fantasize and contemplate and think my way through the world out loud. And… that was one of the greatest things I could’ve grown up with….”

By then, Taeyong was fast asleep, cozy from the sweet words that landed hot on the top of his head, comfortable from the way that Johnny slowly rubbed the small of his back, happy and fuzzy like the hazy morning sun that drifted through the library windows at dawn.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> johnmark best brothers :' )

“He’s been getting better, all this time. I still do wonder what made him so anxious, or if it was really anything that _made_ him anxious at all, but he’s been improving so much and that’s the most I can ever ask from someone. So, I treat Mark a lot like a brother—“

Johnny stopped himself as Taeyong let out a tiny snore. The mermaid was sleeping soundly, letting out warm and long and steady breaths against Johnny’s chest. But Johnny was nowhere close to falling asleep.

“Awwh. Goodnight, honey. Sleep well.” 

He eased himself steadily out of Taeyong’s grasp, then wiped a still-glossy tear track off the mermaid’s warm face. He might’ve stayed like that for a few seconds longer, trying to make out his friend’s expression in the dark. Undoubtedly, he was happy—his little half-open lips were turned up into an equally tiny smile. Johnny jumped and moved farther away when he snored again, quiet and cute but still enough to startle him.

So Johnny laid there for a long time, too lazy to go shut off the lamps but too awake to fall asleep without doing it. Every once in a while, Taeyong would kick out a foot or stretch out his hands; every time he did he would let out a content puff of air. 

A strange feeling hit him, watching the mermaid sprawl out on the bed: he was tired. Mentally tired. But why? He was so happy with Taeyong, and he hadn’t felt drained like that ever since the mermaid first glared at him by the ocean. He realized then that he hadn’t really gotten as much alone time as he was used to. At least a third of his beach-walks were being taken up, even if the reason why was perfectly fine with him. Was that what was bothering him?

He glanced back at Taeyong, grimaced to himself, and inched off the bed. He grabbed the jacket from his chair in the corner and a lantern from the windows and stepped out into the hallway. The hall was dark, and so were the other little rooms on the floor—that always freaked Johnny out, even if it was his fault. He wandered through the living room, staring up at the half-moon watching him through the skylight, and ran down the stairs as he threw on his jacket, feeling the fuzzy collar brush up against his neck. He made his way out into the library’s lobby, excitement thrumming in his chest—he was gonna _relax_ again, and even if he was leaving an hour past curfew, it didn’t really matter! He wouldn’t be arrested for it or anything.

But he entered the lobby to see the library door wide open. Someone’s skinny figure stood in the archway. His excitement lurched to a stop. 

“Hello?”

The figure froze up and looked back. Johnny could see the faint yet distinct outline of Mark’s face in the dim moonlight.

“Why are you awake? Isn’t Taeyong here?” the boy gawked.

“He is, but he’s sleeping. Wh-why are you _here_?” Johnny set the lantern on the lobby desk and rushed over to Mark, leaning himself onto the other side of the doorframe. Mark was wearing a knitted sweater that certainly wasn’t his—it was bigger and a lot more worn-out than most of his clothes—and his hair was tied up halfway like he had originally gotten ready to go to sleep before giving up. Everything about him looked tired, from his eyes to his slumped shoulders.

“I don’t know. My mind is too…” He gestured limply at his head. “Too crazy right now. Too active.”

“Mine too. Why, though? Is everything alright?”

Mark shrugged and sat down on the front step, bouncing his leg. Johnny followed suit, sitting cross-legged right in the doorway. 

“I…. I miss Hyuck.”

“Who?” Johnny blurted out. 

Mark looked back at him; Johnny couldn’t really tell what type of face he was pulling. “Donghyuck?”

“_Who?_”

“M—my boyfriend?”

“_That’s_ his name?” Johnny gasped. He’d never heard that name once before, not in his entire seven years of knowing Mark. 

“Johnny, I’ve known him since childhood—!”

“Yeah, and you only call him Channie. I wouldn’t know. But… didn’t you see him last week?”

“M-hm. That means nothing to my pathetic little brain, though,” Mark groaned into his hands, pushing his glasses farther up his face. “I can’t go there this weekend. The dog had puppies—and Astro is pretty much Channie’s dog so he has to watch over her and take care of the pups and make sure none of them… like, die, you know. But if I go there he knows he’ll get distracted. So he keeps calling me and whining to me that he wants hugs, and it makes me wanna… ack, just literally grab him princess-style and carry him through the meadows.”

“Don’t worry about it that much, Mark,” Johnny consoled him. “It’s only a week. Seven days go by fast, you’ll see him in no time.”

“Yeah, but you see Taeyong like, every other day. You have _no experience._ None.”

Johnny froze up. Taeyong had nothing to do with _anything_ they were talking about. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mark rolled his eyes so dramatically that his head tipped backwards in the process. “You know exactly what I mean.” He sat there for a second, watching Johnny expectantly before straight-up mocking him, bobbing his head like a cockateel: “_No-o, I’m not staring. Looking at someone’s neck for more than seven seconds is perfectly normal human interaction._”

“I wasn’t staring!” Johnny protested. Out of all the stupid things Mark had said to him before, that was the one that aggravated him the most. But why?

“Johnny.” Mark turned to face him; Johnny stared back reluctantly. “You looked at all your crushes the same way. You just observe, you could look for a minute straight—and sometimes you did with some of them. You do the exact same thing with Taeyong. I mean, you look like you’re admiring him. Maybe I’m not the most observant person that God flung onto this planet, but I think I’m smart enough to know when one of my closest friends is in love.”

Johnny swore he heard the sound of seagull-calls in his ear, urging him to make a break for the beach and leave the conversation for once and for all. But he stayed and tried to gather his thoughts. “I don’t know… Mark, he… like, _maybe_ I do, but…” He buried his head in his lap and muttered reluctantly, “Mark, can we go to the beach and talk about this, the waves’ll help me think, can we go to the…”

Mark patted the top of his head. “Whatever you need to think this through, John.” Johnny heard the boy get up and walk over to the desk, and he quickly returned with the lantern in his hand. “C’mon. Let’s get there before dawn, huh?”

☾☀

“You really think I’d hide my own emotions from myself?”

“You probably do it all the time. Everybody does, Johnny. I mean, nobody’s really able to know the reasons behind all their thoughts. Things just happen because they can, you know?”

“I do know, I guess,” Johnny said, still deep in thought. Damp sand squished under his feet as they walked by the shoreline, listening to the waves as they flowed towards them, close but still not close enough to touch them. “I mean, how’d you fall in love with Channie?”

“Hmmh… Circumstance. It was like my brain went, _Hey, you know this boy! Now go wake up, like, every other morning wanting to kiss him,_ all out of nowhere. It was wild. But hey, that’s how it is with love, right?”

Johnny shrugged, laughing. “I mean, I haven’t felt like that yet, but I guess it makes sense.”

“Well, love really isn’t just about wanting affection or anything. It’s more about the way you think of—the way you perceive—the other person. So, if you wanna try and figure this out… what do you really think of Taeyong? Like, be super honest. I don’t care if it sounds dumb.”

“Oh, huh, okay then, um… I don’t know how to describe it. Like, the first word I think of… honestly, it’s just _tiny._ Compared to me he’s little, like, physically, emotionally, spiritually—tiny is written in his aura. And I guess it’s cute?” 

Mark let out a laugh. “Saying that you _guess_ isn’t really gonna help here. Is it cute or not?”

Johnny let out a long sigh. The waves weren’t helping; he was just as emotionally drained as he was before. “It’s cute, it’s cute.” Mark nodded slowly, contemplating. “He, to me, he’s questioning and excited and interested in everything. And it makes me feel a little excited, too. It passes down.”

“So, last time he was here I woke up early in the morning and came down and saw you guys cuddling, so, uh, what’s up with that?”

“I don’t really know, I think he’s just used to it,” Johnny answered, biting back embarrassment. “But I like it.” Mark’s eyes went wide; he tilted his head back, looking nearly impressed. “I—I like it in the way that it shows he’s comfortable with me, because I’m comfortable with him. I guess he makes me feel a little affectionate? A little less nervous too, like I’m not trying to impress him or anything because he doesn’t really care about being impressed. Time with just me and him together is carefree, completely.”

“Aw, sweet,” Mark remarked. “And if I were to hypothetically just, I don’t know, say his name in the middle of a conversation, what’s the first reaction or emotion you would have?”

Thinking of it gave him a strange feeling, like a cross between a heart palpitation and the lump at the back of your throat that you feel when holding back tears, if those two feelings could be felt in a positive way. “I don’t know how to describe it.”

Mark shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s alright, just think about it.”

Johnny nodded, forcing his attention onto the deep blue waves that reached out towards them to clear his mind. A wave flowed in, and Johnny waded into it, feeling the chilly water splash onto his ankles. He watched Mark eyeing him questioningly as he started jogging through the water and the wet sand, kicking up salty droplets as he started going faster and faster, up until he was running full-speed along the coastline, feeling wind brush against his face and hoping that Mark would give chase. 

“Wait! Wa-it! Where are you going?” Mark called after him; Johnny heard the **clunk** of the lantern hitting the ground and the crunching of sand breaking through the noise of rushing water as the boy started bolting, laughing almost as much as he was. “What the hell! Get back here!”

They must’ve been a full mile down the beach when Johnny felt hands slap against his back. He was toppled over as Mark threw himself onto Johnny, tackling him to the ground in a fit of laughter and yelling and panting. They tussled through the wet sand, catching granules in their hair and clothes like they were careless little kids. The stress that had built up in Johnny’s head was almost gone—maybe it wasn’t the alone time that mattered at all.

“You know,” Johnny said through his laughter, “I wanted to go out here and mope and try to calm myself down, but I think this helped more than doing that ever would. Maybe… spending time with one friend, spending time with Tae, it made me realize that I should spend time with everyone else, too. That I should be more comfortable with you all. And I think this is pretty comfortable. I’m getting somewhere.”

“So he’s a good influence,” Mark said with a shrug, brushing sand out of his sweater. Johnny nodded proudly. “Now… take everything you’ve said, everything you’ve told me and all the strange things and feelings you can’t describe, and tell me: does it feel like love? And if it does, do you really think you’re in love with him?”

Johnny pondered over it for a minute, scrunching up his nose in thought. “It sounds a lot like love, but… it feels so strange! I didn’t think this would ever happen. But I guess I don’t know yet. I can’t say for sure.”

“Well,” Mark said with a smile, patting the sand at his sides for dramatic effect, “think about it. It’s good for you.”

“I will. Thank you, Markus,” Johnny joked.

“Oh—we’re bringing _that_ back? Uh-uh, nope, I’m not gonna be your friend anymore if I hear that ever again, ever.”

“Oh, come on, you called me John.”

Mark froze. “Oh. Right. I did, didn’t I.”

Johnny smiled slyly at the boy, punching at his shoulder. “Should we start going back home?”

“Only if you want to.”

He looked up at the moon, then the trail of stars just below her, the same six or so winking lights that he watched Taeyong ogle over the first night. It brought back sweet, happy memories—the light that shone in the mermaid’s wide, awe-filled eyes and the grin that grew on his face as he saw the lights at the top of the hill. 

“I think we should here for a while,” he mumbled, wanting more than anything to mull over those memories, to try and figure out the feelings he had overlooked all those days.


	12. Chapter 12

The conference hall of the library was, unsurprisingly, quiet—the Royal Court was busy writing away in the air pocket caves in their rooms, or working outside the kingdom walls, or gallivanting through the marketplaces. But it was disorienting, seeing the cool light from the giant windows glimmer on the marble floors instead of a hundred or so faces of elegant, bejeweled delegates and advisories and program leaders. Maybe Taeyong wasn’t the best with crowds, but hearing every swish of water he made and every little exhale he let out left him overly self-conscious. He preferred getting lost in the usual cacophonies of laughter and chatter.

He wandered over to the third giant door in the hallway—_Hall 3_ was burnt into a rusty metal plaque, and a sign hanging underneath it read _Private meeting: 11 am - 12:40 pm._ Taeyong glanced at the clock above the archway at the end of the hallway. He was nearly ten minutes early. 

He laughed to himself and leaned against the door. It gave away as soon as his shoulder hit the wood, sending him flying backwards. He flailed his arms around with a screech, struggling to stay upright. 

Two little hands grabbed onto one of his wrists, and he was swiftly flipped over, forced back into balance. Renjun stared back at him, incredulous and biting back laughter.

"Jesus, you get less warrior-like by the _minute,_" he complained, yanking the door shut.

“Should’ve knocked first,” piped someone else’s silvery voice, chortling at him from the stools near the tall windows. The blue light from outside outlined him, glowing in his seaweed-green hair and silky maroon shawl. He was a delegate—that was for sure, the shawl proved it—but Taeyong was pretty sure he had never seen him before. “Save yourself the embarrassment, huh?”

“Don’t be a dickwad, Chenle,” Renjun sighed, sending the young delegate into a fit of laughter. “It’s good to see you’re early, Taeyong. Let’s get this _over with._”

“What’s going on? And, really, what’s up with you kids and using human slang?” Taeyong criticized as he followed the boy to the windows, staring out at the little huts of the kingdom below to avoid eye contact. He put a hand on top of the tall table, 

Renjun gave a nonchalant shrug. “They make good insults. Maybe we don’t know what they mean, but they have that instinctual _punch_ to them. You should ask _Johnny_ what they mean someday,” he sneered, taking a seat next to the snickering Chenle.

Fear immediately jumped up in him. Renjun knew he was sitting right next to a delegate, right? So why was he being so stupid? 

“Why did you—but…” He locked eyes with Chenle, who was amused beyond Taeyong’s understanding. The realization hit him. 

“He _knows?_”

“Yep,” Renjun snorted. “I made myself a copy of the schedule and left it somewhere, and Chenle’s always in my office. He found it, so now he knows. My bad,” he added with a smirk.

Taeyong put his head in his hands. “Oh-h god, why… Why didn’t you keep it somewhere safe…”

“Technically, it was hidden in the bottom drawer, which is usually empty until he has to hide something, so I look through it every time I get in there—“

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a prick,” Renjun jeered. 

“It’s more because you don’t know how to hide things,” Chenle teased back. 

“Can we get to the point here?” Taeyong butted in. “You bring me here with no explanation, tell me a member of the Royal Court discovered us planning something _illegal_, and immediately start stalling. We need to have a reasonable conversation about this.”

“I mean, technically, we’re ten minutes early,” Chenle said. Renjun punched the boy right in the shoulder; he fake-winced, damatically grabbing at his arm.

“Chenle, what do you want from us to keep silent?” Taeyong asked, forcing the conversation back onto topic. The two gawked at him, wide-eyed and confused. “What? This is how bribery works, guys—“

“No-o, Tae,” Renjun explained, “Chenle, the kind, _kind_ boy he is, decided not to cause any commotion and instead join our pursuits. Which is very kind—Chenle, if you keep doing that I’ll kick you out of the entire god-damn ocean.”

Chenle froze in the middle of mimicking the library boy, bringing his fanned hands away from his face and back onto his lap. “It’s both of us or none of us.” Renjun rolled his eyes again, barely maintaining his deadpan stare. 

“Also, you’ve shown me a possible chance to get something cool out of this and now you’re _yoinking_ it away from me?”

“Is that a word?” Taeyong mouthed offhandedly to Renjun. The boy shook his head, fiddling with his glasses out of embarrassment.

“_No!_ I won’t take it!” Chenle continued ranting, his green hair puffing up with every bob of his head. “I want something.”

“Yeah, and you’ll _get_ something,” Renjun said back. “_Camaraderie_.”

“Pfft. Yeah, okay loser.” Chenle looked to Taeyong expectantly. “Get me a hat from the village and help me find my hourglass.”

“Hourglass?” Taeyong repeated. He had always wondered where the hourglass on his shelf had come from, but the thought of having to give it away left him a bit nervous.

“Yes. And—and you don’t even need to really find it. Just, I need help and I know you’re good at things because of course you are, the whole kingdom knows that, and you can get into the artifact rooms that I can’t go into because I kinda banned myself from stepping foot in one of them ever again. It’s a long story. Don’t ask, please. But I really want a hat. Any hat. Please.”

“I can do that,” Taeyong said with a shrug. Maybe he could fake his searches for the hourglass. It would all be fine. “So how are you gonna help?”

“You said it yourself, Tae, another delegate would help us,” Renjun started. “Another voice to approve our words and support us, another person to speak in front of Ten—” He glanced over to see Chenle go wide-eyed, then looked right back. “Any help right now is important. Or, maybe it isn’t, but if the Court questions us when Ten is supporting us… having as many citizens as possible on our side is essential.”

“Listen,” Chenle butted in. “Maybe I’m not gonna be the greatest choice in helping you sort things out with the turtle delegate—I mean, he makes fun of me, which I guess is normal for him because we don’t talk at any other time and it looks like he does that with everyone else, but I’ve never had a full conversation with him or anything. I don’t know how to help you there. You guys are on your own. But, I do have a lot of friends. And a fair amount of citizens that want to be my friend. So, I can help the most with that.”

“Which is exactly what we need,” Renjun said proudly. “Taeyong, the two of us, we’re shut-ins.”

“What?” Taeyong spluttered. 

“_Shut-ins,_” the boy repeated slowly. Chenle looked on gleefully, watching Taeyong’s confused face and trying not to smile too much. “How many friends do we have in total? Like, seven? It’s pitiful. Either way, you literally sit in the corner of the conference room every meeting, and for God’s sake I work in a _library._ That speaks for itself. We _need_ someone unlawfully extroverted like Chenle on our side.” 

“You’re welcome,” Chenle said snidely. Renjun rolled his eyes at him. 

“So what’s the plan?”

Chenle tipped his head from side to side, thinking. “I… don’t know. But whatever I do, I promise I’ll start small. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” Renjun asked, a little worried.

“You know…” The delegate tapped his fingers on the edge of the stool nervously. “I don’t want our confidants to act awkward. Awkwardness causes suspicion, so I need to make sure the people I induct into this are able to act normally in society after I tell them. I’m probably gonna start with Jisung,” he said to Renjun, giving the boy a sheepish grin. 

“God,” Renjun remarked, “leave that boy alone.”

Taeyong sat in shock as the two started bickering again, pushing roughly at each others’ shoulders. “Like, my student, Jisung,” he said, trying to break through the conversation. 

Chenle shrugged. “Probably? I can’t think of any other Jisungs.”

“Yeah, just like how you can’t ever think of anyone else in this entire kingdom,” Renjun jeered. 

“Agh! God! I shouldn’t have ever told you anything from my secret private hidden thoughts,” Chenle huffed, enunciating every word harshly. “But, yeah,” he continued normally to Taeyong with such a sudden transition that it nearly sent Renjun reeling, “I trust Jisung to be okay with the whole thing. He’s super level-headed. I mean, you probably know that, but—”

“How about Lucas?” Taeyong recommended. The kids immediately started shaking their heads. Renjun even had a grimace on his face. “Wh—“

“Pay attention to your students, Tae. He especially doesn’t need to know we’re going against Ten’s word until the ordeal is over.”

“Yeah, telling him is pretty much just as bad as going straight up to Doyoung and shouting it right in his face,” Chenle laughed.

“Ah. If you say so,” Taeyong said with a shrug. “I’ll believe you. But thank you for helping us, Chenle. I appreciate it a lot, and I hope Renjun does too.”

“I do.” Renjun rolled his eyes for the last time that meeting, grinning brightly. “Thanks a lot, Chenle. I’m almost glad you decided to rummage through my stuff.”

☾☀

“You’ve been up in the village?” piped a low, unnaturally quiet voice from the doorway of the supply closet, snapping Taeyong roughly out of his daydreams. The mermaid swallowed down the thoughts of warm sunlight and soft human hands brushing through his hair and turned hesitantly to face whoever stood behind him.

“Oh.” Dread tugged at his heart as he looked up at Lucas’ wide eyes, at the way his student’s mouth was half-parted like he was struggling to speak. 

The boy opened up one of the cabinets and slid a pair of nunchucks into their slot. He tugged at the wrist strap of his gloves nervously. 

“Where did you hear that from, Lucas?” Taeyong asked, trying not to answer the question, even though it was clear the boy knew what the answer was. Had Jisung told him—and if he did, why would he? Maybe he didn't know the kid as much as he thought.

“_I_ heard it.” Taeyong stared at the boy, noticing a heavy feeling sink in his stomach. “Kun put me on security two nights ago, since all of his students were out doing projects. And I heard your voice from near the shore. I didn't think of it because I thought you were just leaving to kill that human, but I realized that if you were, Ten and Doyoung would’ve been awake and on security, that you would’ve been actively sending messages. But you weren’t.” He spoke meekly, with his eyes fixed on his gloves and his shoulders hunched over. Then, he gave a pitifully sad glance at Taeyong, enough to crush his heart into a hundred pieces. “What were you doing?”

It was no use lying to the boy. Taeyong let out a long, tired sigh and sat down on the bench in the back of the closet. He tapped the spot next to him; Lucas slowly drifted over. 

“I’ve been told not to talk about this with you, but I trust you more than I can describe,” he began. Lucas looked uneasy; he clutched at his forearm, digging his fingernails in. Taeyong tried to block out everything around him, the cold coral walls of the stadium closet and the hordes of chairs and weapons and half-broken things and the shaking boy beside him. “I've been going to the village to exempt that man from murder. The man, Johnny, he… the deaths of the turtles was an accident. He was trying to save them. Like an average human, he went in too brashly, and because of that, three of them died from his own doing. But that wasn’t necessarily his fault.” 

“How?” Lucas blurted out. “Ten said—“

“Yes, but Ten admitted himself that he wasn’t there to see everything. He only saw the man walking away from the nest, not him fighting off gulls, not him carrying turtles to the water. It was stupid of him. I know. But that doesn’t mean his life should be taken away for it.”

“But, everything else…” Lucas whimpered.

“Inconsequential misdemeanors,” Taeyong said. “Normal human actions.”

Lucas didn't respond for a while; he just sat there, hands still on his lap. 

“Are you okay?” Taeyong asked, and the boy looked up. 

“I am,” he said, bobbing his head. “I am.” He stared at his hands for a little longer before pulling his gloves off. “What's the village like?”

“Hmh, the village.” Taeyong forced away his fuzzy daydreams again. “Have you ever felt, let's see, warmth from the sunset? Sitting above the ocean surface, basking in the light...”

“I think so. It felt kinda weird, but in a good way.”

“Yeah, I can understand that. Well, imagine that, the tingly warmth and yellow light and orange and red clouds, and build a village out of it. A whole village, inspired by a sunset.” Lucas looked on, halfway in awe, halfway in confusion. “The buildings are tall and built out of all these strange materials, and the roads are made of red bricks, and the sun is almost always bright and warm and pleasant. And there's a park, right at the center of the village, where they grow all these big soft flowers and fruit trees by this little path.”

“It sounds so… different. Beautiful, but so different.” Lucas was still speaking into his gloves, all balled up in one giant hand. “Was getting used to it hard?”

“No. Johnny helped me.”

“The criminal _helped_ you?” Lucas gawped.

“He's not a criminal,” Taeyong reinstated as soon as the question flew out of his student’s mouth, almost out of instinct. “But he did. He's a lot sweeter than you expect.”

“I guess he is, if you're helping him.” The boy got up from the bench with a huff. “You wouldn't help someone who didn't deserve it. Right?”

“Why would I?”

Lucas flopped his hands to his sides dejectedly. “I dunno. Spite? Rebellion?”

Taeyong couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no. I’m perfectly fine with my position in this kingdom. And, it doesn’t feel good lying to anyone here. Lying to Ten, especially.” Lucas’ head perked up at the name again, eyes fixed on the wall behind Taeyong’s head with an unnerved look. “Xuxi, he’s my closest friend. I can’t wait to be honest to him again. But, I believe that sometimes things are enacted too brashly, here. It’s a cutthroat nature—_follow these laws and guidelines we haven’t yet revealed to you or die._ From my observations, Johnny deserves better.”

“Ah.” The boy was somewhat relieved by that; maybe he still had that queasy look on his face, but his shoulders untensed and his fingers lost their deathly grip on the gloves. Finally, he put the things away into the cabinet. When he looked back, the faintest trace of a smile graced his face. 

“Maybe I don’t know Ten very well, but please tell him the truth soon. He deserves to know, I think. And it’s better to do it instead of waiting and letting something bad happen.”

It was a valid point. Taeyong was proud of his student—maybe he had learnt something valuable, after all—but also a little nervous. Was this what Chenle and Renjun meant? Would Lucas be the final key in kicking them out of the Kingdom, for once and for all? “Thank you. But don’t worry too much about it, Xuxi. I promise you that I’m trying to clear this all up as soon as possible, and clearing it starts with telling Ten.”

With that, the boy was satisfied. He nodded a few times, then muttered out a quick, “I need to get home. Thank you, too, sir. Goodnight.”

“You too.” 

Right when the boy was halfway out the door, Taeyong called out to him: “Lucas.”

He looked back, nervousness flaring in his eyes again.

“Hm?”

“Is it a crush?”

“On… Ten?”

Taeyong nodded. He wondered if he was prying a little too much, but he quickly dismissed that worry. Lucas had allowed him to become more and more fatherly every day, it seemed.

“Yeah,” Lucas responded sheepishly. “It is. I thought I was making it obvious.”

“You were. And from what I know, you're certainly not alone.” Both of them laughed away the tension that still hung in the air, and as Lucas walked away, Taeyong felt that maybe Chenle and Renjun were wrong. Letting Lucas in on the plan was a lot more freeing than he was made to expect.


	13. Chapter 13

As quickly as it had come, Johnny’s first month with Taeyong was drawing to an end. He looked forward to the next month, yes, and he had enjoyed every second he spent with the mermaid—but the thought of being halfway through already made him nervous. So Johnny had decided on making the next few days as interesting as possible for the boy, which meant a lot of early-morning traveling and a lot of friends.

The ornate metal railings of the fourth-floor studio balcony were cold to the touch, frozen in the chilly September morning. Taeyong sat cross-legged on the ground, running a finger along the swirls and petals forged into the tarnished iron, and Johnny was content in watching him admire the craftsmanship. 

“Did Jungwoo make these, too?” the mermaid asked. A sweet, tranquil tone accented his voice, and pinkish light bounced onto his face from clouds that thinly blanketed the cobalt sky. 

“No.” Johnny shook his head. “They were here when he started renting this place.”

Taeyong’s finger began to outline one of the blossoms in the metal, delicately, as if he was touching a real flower. “He’s such a nice person.”

“Ah, yeah. You should see him when he’s really awake, though. Then, it’s like…” He tried to demonstrate some sort of explosion with hand gestures. “Chaos.”

Taeyong snorted. “I can’t believe it.” He flopped onto his back to stare at the multicolored sky. A smile lit up his eyes, and Johnny struggled against the urge to smile back. 

“It’s so pretty from up here.”

“I know. I’ve always liked having a view like this—the view from the library is nice, but being right in the center of the village has a whole different feeling to it. I used to come here a lot in the mornings. Jungwoo gave me a key to the place when he was trying to teach me about watercolor.”

“Mm-hmm! And you forgot all-l about it,” chirped Jungwoo from the open doorway, almost as if he was mimicking the warbling birds that sat on the roofs just below them. He was holding two mugs by the handles in his one hand, and leaning onto the wooden frame with the other. His yellow-blond hair was ruffled up in the front, the product of either a very good or very bad night’s sleep. “The key _and_ the painting. Taeyong, do you like coffee? I have chamomile tea in the kitchen if you don’t.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t had coffee before,” Taeyong said as he sat himself back up.

Jungwoo gasped at Johnny with a look of utter betrayal. “_Johnny!_”

“It’s addictive!” Johnny retorted. “There’s no coffee in the ocean! I’m not gonna get someone addicted to something and make them go through withdrawal.”

“Nobody’s getting addicted to caffeine in fifteen days.” The boy rolled his eyes at Johnny, and he stuck his tongue out at him in return. “Jeesh! So defensive.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny saw Taeyong eyeing him curiously. He turned his head, and they locked eyes for a millisecond; Johnny turned away right when a charming grin flashed onto the mermaid’s face, hoping his face wasn’t going red. 

“I’ll just have the tea,” Taeyong chortled complacently. 

As dawn broke and morning shone upon them in a whirl of golden light and mellow conversation, they moved inside to the big circular room of Jungwoo’s studio. Taeyong laid flat on his back with his mug of chamomile just above his head, observing the tan-and-blue colors of the scenes painted in-between the wooden rafters positioned like spokes on a bicycle wheel. His fingers grazed the base of an easel upon which one of many half-painted canvases sat. 

“I didn’t know you sculpted, Woo,” Johnny awed as a rough, unfinished white marble bust on a newspaper-covered desk, surrounded by a slew of different chisels and sandpapers, caught his eye. 

“I didn’t,” Jungwoo said back proudly, setting a tray of grapes and other neatly-sliced fruits on the ground. Taeyong tilted his head to one side to look at it before sitting up, grabbing a few grapes, and plopping his head back softly onto the floor. “Just decided to expand my areas of expertise. I was getting bored.”

“Hmmph. You should’ve started that before you started teaching me,” Johnny teased.

“What, for me to teach you sculpting? Listen, I don’t care if you’re my friend, I’d need to be paid for that.”

“Reasonable,” Johnny laughed. He walked a little closer to the bust, admiring the beginnings of the tiny details that Jungwoo was adding into the fine-boned, boxy face. Looking at it for a little longer, he realized that the face was somewhat familiar. “Hu-uh. Did you get Taeil to model for you?”

Jungwoo immediately went sheepish. “You don’t get to know my inspirations, Johnny,” he said, grinning in such a way that it revealed that his answer was a certain _yes._

“That’s so cute,” Johnny chirped. Jungwoo fervently nodded. “When is the wedding going to be? I need to put it in my schedule but I didn’t get an invitation yet.”

Johnny knew that, when given a chance to talk about his wedding, Jungwoo would jump onto it as quickly as possible. And just as expected, the boy did. “Oh-h, that's because we haven't figured everything out yet,” he lilted, talking eagerly. “But it’ll be next Summer. _Just_ before Bastille Day.”

“Ah. That’s surprising. It’s gonna be an inside venue?” 

Jungwoo’s face screwed up. “Ew! No.” 

“Won’t it be hot, though?”

“Johnn-y. C’mon! Think of the _lighting,_ the _photo opportunities._ It’ll be beautiful. And it'll still be warm at night.” 

“Wait,” Taeyong called out, finally grounding himself back into reality as he sat up. “A wedding?” 

“Yep.” Jungwoo became even more eager to talk than before. “I proposed to Taeil in April. Took him to Paris and everything, made a whole day out of it, and I _finally_ got him to marry me.” Taeyong popped a strawberry slice into his mouth, his eyes wide and intent as he took in Jungwoo’s words. 

The boy kneeled down at the mermaid's side to show him his engagement ring, tilting his hand around so that the sapphires forged into the gold glinted in the mid-morning light. “He gave this to me when we got back home,” he chuckled to the awe-filled Taeyong. “He told me, he was going to propose with it in the city, but he forgot the box in his nightstand. A-ah, it was so cute.”

“When did you realize that you were falling in love with him?” the mermaid asked as if he was quoting a fairy-tale, rubbing a careful finger along the surface of the gemstones.

Jungwoo laughed fondly, then looked back at Johnny with a questioning look. Johnny gave him a nod and a little exasperated huff.

“Well,” the artist began, starting the spiel that Johnny had heard him give so many times. “Seven years ago, when I was still being apprenticed in the gallery up the hill, they would bring in all these different models for anatomy studies, a new person a week, sitting there… essentially naked. And, believe me, many of them were gorgeous. _Most_ of them were.” He plopped backwards onto his sit-bones and crossed his legs, letting a soft-eyed wistful look cross his face. “Especially one of them. He was this strong, beautiful… absolute sculpture of a man, with eyes so round and soulful that it looked like he had walked out of a Manet painting. So, as most people filled with unmet desire would do in my situation, I became sort of fascinated with him.”

“I thought Taeil was a gardener, though,” Taeyong piped up.

“He is, don’t worry. I’ll get to that.” Jungwoo smiled at him, all fond and sweet. Johnny thought back at all the teasing, sour faces the artist had pulled at him before during their friendship, and the contrast shook him to his core. Then again, it was Taeyong—he couldn’t imagine anyone being rude to the boy.

“After the second day, I had asked him out for dinner. He agreed, and we went to a little classic French dine-in, sweet and casual, whatever you'd expect when you think of a first date. The food was great, and he was great, sort of, but talking to him made me realize a little thing about the strong, sinewy sort of people that I’ve always chased after. Sure—”

“_Abs are great, but a rich personality in the man behind them makes them even better,_” Johnny groaned in tandem with Jungwoo’s honeyed voice. “Woo, you have to switch it up sometimes. It's getting a little repetitive.”

Jungwoo snapped his head back to scowl at Johnny. “Ne-ver. It took so long to perfect it! I’m not giving up now!”

“Sure you did, but—“

“Anyways! We both gave up on each other after that, and a few days later, I walked into Taeil’s greenhouse to say hello. We had been friends since childhood, and before then, I had never noticed any romantic feelings—which, saying that now sounds crazy to me because I know I was totally feeling them. Our minds are strange, aren’t they?” Taeyong gave him an affirmative hum in reply. “But then, finally, I had come to realize those feelings, all the crazy stuff hidden under years of friendship. I realized that I was chasing something impossible, that I was looking for an objectively perfect person instead of finding someone with actual compatibility. The man that took me to dinner? Nothing, no true feelings of closeness or fondness—but Taeil? Hmmh. I would've never thought of him being perfect for me. Though I think I finally gave up on trying to hide it one Summer when I was working at the greenhouse and he would talk to all the plants as he watered them.”

Taeyong laughed at that. “That's a little weird.”

“Well—well, it's pretty endearing when it's coming from someone you've in love with,” Jungwoo defended. “Besides, you have to see the _face_ he makes when he does, it’s the cutest thing in the world. I _promise_ you.”

By then, Johnny wasn’t really paying attention—he was content in just watching the two laugh and babble like gossiping teens, seeing the dawn shift into late morning and send bright sunlight cascading through the windows of the picturesque studio.

☾☀

“Wait—he’s been letting you do _what_?” Yuta gasped, leaning his elbows against the coffee table and nearly knocking over Taeyong’s tea.

“A-ah, no! Don’t worry about it. It’s only an hour after curfew,” Johnny said over the mermaid’s snickering, grabbing at the mug before it tipped over. 

Yuta leapt up and ran into the hallway, skidding to a stop at he bedroom door. “You’re gonna get fired!” he yelled as he flung the door open.

“What?” mumbled Sicheng in a low, grumbly voice, barely audible from the living room. 

“You’re gonna get _fired_,” Yuta lectured again. “This is—this is assisted law-breaking.”

“Hmmh. Baby, it isn’t if you’re not getting caught.”

“I—shut _up._” Yuta struggled to hide a smile. “The café’s opening in an hour. Johnny and his friend are here.”

“Wh…” A gasp, then a loud scuffling sound, came from the room. “My alarm—! Oh-h, I forgot that I invited you, Johnny,” Sicheng called out, “I'm sorry!”

Johnny just laughed in reply; so did Taeyong as he hid his face in his elbows. When they had arrived at the apartment above Le Chat Somnolent, Yuta and Sicheng’s passion-project café, they hadn’t expected to find the place in such a state of chaos. 

Sicheng poked his head and a bare shoulder out into the hallway, letting mousey brown hair fall over his nervous eyes. “I’ll be there in a bit,” he said to them before looking at Yuta. “I’ll start on the espresso right when I get downstairs, just tell Jaemin when he gets here that he’ll have to wait a few minutes to get some.”

“But—breakfast?” Yuta gawped.

“I’ll be okay without it, babe, don’t worry,” Sicheng chuckled. He retreated back into the room, and the bustling started up again. 

“Pft. No breakfast, I swear to _god,_” Yuta mumbled to himself as he trudged to the kitchen, taking a giant carton of wildberries and an equally large bag of oranges from the counter and setting them down at the bottom of a bag. 

“You talk like you’re his husband of fifty years,” Johnny snorted.

“I feel like I am,” Yuta said back. He took his half-full mug of coffee and downed it in a second flat.

“How does it work?” Taeyong asked. Yuta glanced over at him above the rim of the coffee mug, giving him a confused look. “Running the café and making everything, it seems like a lot for two people.”

“Ah. Well, it's a lot of preparation and cleaning and work, but we get everything done pretty well. It was stressful when I was all by myself, but Sicheng is really good at making drinks, so now I just leave all that stuff to him, and that works out great for us.” He pulled a hair tie off his wrist and ran his hands through the front of his long red hair as he talked, then gathered the rest of it together into a ponytail. “Business isn’t as scary as a lot of people make it sound, if you’re not looking to expand at least. In our case, it's more fun than anything.” 

“Like a bonding experience?” Johnny laughed.

Yuta huffed at him. “A game, more like it. Fighting for our dream.”

“_Your_ dream,” Sicheng called out through the wall. Yuta hid his head in his hand, trying to hide a smile.

It was fifteen minutes before opening when Sicheng bolted down the stairs into the kitchen toting giant bags of coffee beans. “Oh-h no, poor Jaemin, he's really gonna have to wait,” he mumbled to himself as he slammed the bags on the wooden counter. 

“He always hangs around here for an hour anyway,” Yuta consoled him as he dropped a roll of 2-cent pieces into the register. “He doesn't need it right away.”

“No—do you _see_ that boy? He's a café latte _fiend._” 

“And? He'll still get it! He'll understand, Chengie, you’re gonna be fine.” Sicheng pretended to be irritated by that; he tipped half a bag of coffee beans into a grinder with a dramatic pout.

Johnny laughed from his seat at the center table, taking his attention off from the front counter and back onto Taeyong sitting across from him at the table. The mermaid’s feet tapped against the metal supports of the stool as he munched down on a hot piece of tartine—the mere sight of the satisfaction in his eyes and the happy thrum of his fingers against the wooden tabletop nearly sent Johnny reeling. 

“I never noticed how much those two bicker,” he mused as he squished a corner of the chocolate croissant on his plate. 

Taeyong hummed in reply. “It's sweet, though.” The boy leaned his elbows onto the table and rested his head in his palms. “They work well together.”

“They do. That’s why I admire them so much,” he added nonchalantly. “It's exactly what I'd want with a relationship.”

“Me too,” Taeyong agreed, giving him a surprised look and a nod. He set his tartine back onto the plate and pushed it aside, just to lean in a little closer. 

Johnny couldn’t help but laugh nervously, pushing away worries. Taeyong was doing it again, acting on his tendency to move a little closer, no matter what. Or, was that just Johnny and his innate urge to give affection pulling the boy closer, like he radiated some sort of magnetic field? 

He fixed the front of Taeyong’s ruffled hair, then smoothed out the upturned collar of his shirt. “You look like a mess,” he said fondly, feeling like a living contradiction.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yuta beckon Sicheng over to the register, then point directly at Johnny with a giddy smile. His face flushed pink as he heard the two giggling at each other. God, of course they were talking about them, what did he expect? What were they seeing? He wondered whether or not to ask them what to do, how to comprehend his emotions.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt a fingertip press at the corner of his mouth—he looked to see Taeyong cup a hand around his jaw to rub off a little smudge of chocolate ganache. Involuntarily, Johnny’s eyes went wide as he was struck with a wave of nearly insuppressible nerves. 

“So do you,” the mermaid said, letting his intent look break into a smile.

☾☀

Sunlight glinted in the leaves of the yellowing trees that encircled the village and touched amber on the tips of every flower on the slopes of the meadow, golden and hazy as it danced through the cold morning air. Flowers and grass and flora passed by in a blur as Johnny pedaled down the pathway after Taeyong, laughing in shock and worry and excitement at how fast the mermaid was going.

His hair, sea green in the dawn sun, glowed like a halo as the bike tottered down the pathway, kicking up clouds of dirt that left golden particles in the air. He could barely keep looking straight—every wooden post of the fence or pretty purple or yellow flower, every swallowtail and moth that lazily fluttered by caught his eyes, made his head perk up even more. Johnny was barely focusing on the rocks jolting him around on the pathway—his attention was caught for good. 

“John-ny,” Taeyong cautioned him, calling his name over the rattle of the chains, “I'm going to slow down. Don't stay behind me.”

“Okay.” Johnny let his bicycle verge to the right as the boy let his feet stall on the pedals, wobbling down the path until the momentum nearly ran out. He hastily set a foot on the ground as the bike nearly toppled over. 

“Ah-h, you did it so I could be next to you?” Johnny teased as he drifted to a stop next to the mermaid. The leftover panic of nearly falling over that sparked in Taeyong’s eyes suddenly drifted away, and the bright smile that replaced it shone brighter than the sun.

“I like talking to you.”

“You like _hearing my voice_,” Johnny corrected. Taeyong huffed at him jokingly. “Very big difference.” 

“Well, I don't like silence very much. You’re helping me.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Ah, fine.” He set his foot back onto the pedal and gave it a steady push; Taeyong followed his lead, gasping as his bike dipped dramatically to one side before evening out again. “Well, about a mile away,” Johnny began explaining, “we'll take the left path on the fork, and that'll take us to the farm area. When we hit the village, we'll be all the way on the other side of it so we'll have to walk our way home. Then, we'll eat breakfast. Sound good?” 

Taeyong gave him a sly sort of look as he thrummed his fingers against the handlebars. “Anything's good when it's with you, Johnny,” he said before breaking into a giddy smile and pressing a bit too hard on the pedal, making his bike rocket forward. Johnny laughed at him, flustered but trying not to think too hard about it. He picked up the pace until they were head-to-head once more, half-speeding down the dirt path until their nerves lulled their pedaling.

“What... _what_ did you say?” Johnny pried, trying not to think of his heart thrumming loudly, as if it was trying to burst out of him. Taeyong started laughing and nearly burrowed his head in his chest. “Oh my god, no, no, don't do that—but _what did you say?_ What did you—what was—“ 

“Shut _u-up!_” Taeyong cackled back, his face turning beet-red. 

“Aw-w,” Johnny cooed. He took a hand off the handlebar of his bike and laid a kiss to the tip of his finger, then tapped Taeyong’s cheek with it before the mermaid could bat his hand away.

TIme seemed to freeze them into stillness. Taeyong gawked back at Johnny, half in shock. "What was _that_ for?"

Finally, Johnny's brain caught up to his actions, and he sped away in a panic. _Jesus! Oh my god! Why did I do that?_ That was love, wasn't it? That was certainly love, what he was feeling—the warmth and comfort and openness, the easiness of waking up when together, even the ever-jolting nerves that came with locking eyes.

Maybe he should've been able to figure it out earlier, but that didn't matter—he was in love, in love with the boy that would only be in his life for one more fleeting month, bursting into his life in a crashing wave of starlight and smiles and drawing away just as soon as he arrived. Maybe, he thought, he shouldn't get too attached—but then again, Johnny never really cared that much about his future.


	14. Chapter 14

October began with the gentle patter of rain against the ocean surface, the drifting laziness of a dark room in the early evening, and an ever-present haze of emotion that could never escape Taeyong’s mind. He drifted through daydreams as he delved into the stack of papers Doyoung had left in his mail, barely understanding the complicated strings of words on them as if he had never read legal paperwork in his life. His mind was focusing on other things, like it had been doing since the very first days of September.

He was already sliding off his stool. Half of his body leaned onto the desk as he absentmindedly swirled a quill in a tiny pot of concentrated squid ink, letting his gaze flit between the lines of Sehun’s monthly report on the progress of the castle guard program. His brain seemed stuck on a song that played in the patisserie he and Johnny stopped in the morning before, one with gentle piano and brassy trumpet and a smooth crooning voice, and he whistled along to the small bit of trumpet solo he could remember as it replayed in his memories. 

The two had given up on going back to the library after returning to the village streets—alternately, they ate near the front door of the tiny shop, sitting on the windowsill and sharing a cinnamon roll. The pretty music coming from the open door was just another positive from that morning, one alongside hundreds more. 

_Hmmh. I'm in love, aren't I,_ he thought with a chuckle, setting his head in his hand and gazing at his stack of uncompleted papers. Johnny's name, repeated over and over in almost every paragraph with words like _destruction_ or _murder_, stared back at him. He ran a finger along the vane of the quill as, slowly, a strange nervousness grew in his chest.

“Hello?” Taeyong nearly fell off of his stool. It was Ten. The delegate’s voice sounded weak, cold, as he called through the door, his fingers rapidly thrumming against the splintering wood. 

“We have business to attend to. Let me in.”

What was going on? Why was Ten there? Why was his voice so tired? Was he okay? What business was he talking about? Jesus—what did he _know?_ What was he going to do about it? And what had he already done? Taeyong could barely breathe, let alone get up to open the door. His heart was halfway in his throat and beating like the steady clicking of a clock’s second-hand.

“Taeyong?” A long, excruciating silence answered the boy. Ten continued on, his voice hushed and flat as if he was trying not to cause a scene: 

“You have two hours to get out of this kingdom, or the Court will fucking kill you.”

The words hit like an arrow to the chest. “W… what?”

“Let me _in._”

Hesitantly, Taeyong pushed himself off of the stool and unlocked the door. “What’s going on—?“

Ten grabbed him by the shoulder and lurched him down to eye level, digging his nails so deep into Taeyong’s skin that it nearly felt like it was piercing muscle. Suddenly, they were face-to-face. Every muscle in Ten’s lithe body was tense, as if poised for attack. But his cloak still billowed in the shifting water like a lazy sea anemone, and the stoic deadpan on his face seemed tranquil at surface level. The delegate was filled with anger—yet it was a dry sort of anger, a quiet rage, strange and foreign when dully glinting in his reddened eyes. 

“Don’t even try anything, traitor. You’re unarmed and I have a dagger.” 

“Traitor?” Taeyong whimpered. 

Ten glossed over his question with a huff. “What are you plotting? What’s your scheme, Tae. Tell me. After years of solitude and peace in your position, what brings you to plotting against the Kingdom?”

“I—“ 

“What were you going to do to me?” His eyes went wider, more anxious, and he squeezed the handle of the knife. “To the King? To Doyoung?”

Taeyong’s brain was whirling, and his shoulder was aching. He struggled to even get one sentence out. “Ten, l-let me explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Ten snipped. “Stop _stalling,_ Taeyong! Get to the point.”

“I… I should’ve told you sooner.”

Ten said nothing. Instead, he slowly unsheathed the dagger, holding it behind his back with a trembling hand. He let out a long breath and for a split second, his lips twitched into a nervous grimace. 

“You and Doyoung had set me on the case against Johnny. I gathered evidence for the five days. I stayed on it, I prepared myself, everything. And then I gave up. He’s not guilty—the moment he talked to me, I knew he wasn’t. And even before then, all he did was act like a little kid, running in the water. So after that…” Taeyong’s words drifted off hesitantly. “After that… I made a schedule with Renjun for me to go up to the village. Three days a week, with the spell. And I’ve been living with him and observing him to make sure I was right. I… think I was. He’s such a genuine person, he has the strongest moral compass I’ve ever seen. He’s not fully innocent—he did all of those things, I know that he did… but he doesn’t deserve to die, Ten. It was a mistake. He was trying to help.” 

Silence filled the small space between them again, and Taeyong realized that he was staring at the floor. His gaze flitted up instinctually as some of the pressure released from his shoulder.

“Taeyong, you could've disputed the case.” Ten was starting at him still, disappointment tinging his softened gaze. “This didn't need to happen. I would've listened.”

“I was scared that you wouldn't,” Taeyong sighed. The dagger was slotted back into its sheath.

They were launched into silence again. Then, Ten shoved hard against Taeyong’s shoulder, sending him flying backwards with a screech. The delegate started scolding him like he was talking to a particularly terrible child, thrashing a hand around as he yelled. “You _stupid brat!_ I've known you since I was three and _this_ is the thanks I get?” Taeyong stared up at him blankly from his spot on the ground, barely understanding anything except the dry humor drenching the boy’s words through the rush of his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. “God, I’m not _that_ much of an ass! You know, this is great. Spec-_tac-_ular. You're kicked out of the ocean and it's all your fault.”

“What happened, even?” Taeyong piped as soon as the topic came up. “When did they see me—?”

__

Ten huffed, rolling his eyes. “The reef preservation officer has been seeing you go back and forth from the coast for the past _two weeks_. She asked me yesterday if you were on any shoreside missions, and you weren't, so me and Doyoung... well, we _figured it out_,” he said. 

__

“I'm so sorry that you had to deal with this,” Taeyong started. 

__

Ten let out a little snort, scrunching up his nose. “You better be. I almost stabbed you.”

__

“I know,” Taeyong chuckled. Finally, a smile upturned the corners of Ten’s mouth, and he immediately felt a bit more at ease. “It hurt a lot, lying like that. I don't even know how I did it. But now that we're here... I guess it was a waste.”

__

“It was.” Ten glanced out of the window, looking at the clock tower just outside of the rooming-halls. “We just lost thirty minutes. The guards’ll search the entire perimeter of the Kingdom walls, you know that... We'll have to make a plan.”

__

“A plan for what?” Taeyong gawked.

__

“A plan to get you un-banished, stupid. You said Renjun’s helping you?”

__

“Yes..?”

__

“Perfect,” Ten said, putting his hands together decidedly. “We’re gonna need him.”

__

__

_☾☀_

“Are you sure that this'll be safe?” Renjun asked as he lit a candle sitting on the sand of the cave, filling the dark space with the faintest trace of light. His voice reverberated through the musty open air, echoing like a ringing bell. Taeyong felt a little nervous as he sat on one of the boulders near the edge of the pool, watching his friends talk out the situation.

“Pretty sure,” Ten said matter-of-factly. Chenle, with his damp green hair all pushed into his sleepy eyes, nodded along as he dragged a hand along the surface of the water. “It's a completely uncharted area. But Dowoon’s been using it as a hiding spot for years.”

__

“You're kidding!” Lucas boomed, echoing everyone else's surprised looks.

__

“Why d'you need a hiding spot?” Taeyong questioned the geographer.

__

Dowoon looked up from his spot next to the water, shimmying himself up off his stomach. He shrugged with a little laugh that bounded around the cave walls. “Just in case.”

__

“No matter what, it's helpful,” Ten butted in, setting the conversation back on track. “Okay, listen, we need to schedule this. The appeal to break the ban will probably take a week to get through to all the Representatives, then another three days for voting, then the King will give the ruling the next day. And this all depends on if the Court and the Reps trust you enough to take you back, Tae. If they don't, you're screwed. We don't have a lot of power over that.”

__

“But,” Jisung asked with his usual unfittingly low voice, thrumming his long fingers along the ridge of the ledge that he sat on, “where is he going to stay?”

__

“Here, probably,” Ten guessed. Dowoon nodded affirmatively, and a few others voiced their agreement.

__

Renjun raised his hand, and Ten pointed to him. “You disagree?”

“Yeah, it's stupid as shit,” Renjun said back. “First of all, sure, this place isn't on the maps, but we don't really know the extent that the guards will search. This hasn't happened before. Either way, if Kun and Sehun _really_ want Taeyong dead, they'll search in here and it'll be over. It's dangerous.”

“We don't have another choice,” Ten defended, giving a quick wide-eyed glance at Taeyong. 

“Are you kidding?” Chenle laughed. “He's got a whole villager wrapped around his finger to take care of him.”

Renjun slapped a hand to the water excitedly. “Exactly! Tae can live with his boyfriend, and—“

“He's not my boyfriend yet!” Taeyong snipped.

The cave launched into near chaos. 

“Holy shit, he knows a human word!” Renjun awed with pride in his eyes, just as Lucas’ jaw dropped and Chenle started laughing uncontrollably, his voice cracking as he ducked his head to his chest. Jisung nodded his head around like he had expected it from the beginning, and Dowoon let out a long “_Wo_-oah!”

“_Yet!_” Ten gawked with even wider eyes than before. “Holy shit! I feel like I've been _dumped_—“ His smile dropped. “Wait. You fell in love with a criminal?”

“He's not a criminal,” Taeyong, Renjun, and Lucas corrected in tandem. Taeyong continued the conversation, hoping to put it back on track: “But yes, please let me stay with Johnny. It'll work out better.”

“Sure, but... the spell?” Ten pressed. Taeyong’s heart sunk.

Renjun raised his hand again, not even waiting for Ten to call on him. “Simple. See, magic is a fucked system. The effects will last a lot longer if you're doing it to yourself. In this case, the spell will last for about a day. So Taeyong—“ he looked up, giving Taeyong a nervous smile— “you're gonna have to learn the spell.”

Dowoon snorted and buried his head in his hands.

“Okay, but _how the hell_ is he gonna do that in a week?” Ten fought back.

“Well, because magic’s fucked,” Renjun said, “I'd only need to teach him that one. It'll be like learning how to make one super difficult thing without learning the basics behind it. It's happened a whole bunch of times in the past, too.” 

“That'll work, then,” Ten said simply, earning a proud smile from Renjun. “So Taeyong will just have to set a time to perform the spell on himself.”

“No. The thing about this is that it's difficult. He also needs to be in his normal form for at least an hour every day. Or he'll dry up like a raisin and probably die.” 

“What?” Taeyong squeaked. 

“Don't worry!” Renjun assured him. “It won't happen if we schedule it right. Which, we will. And it won't take long, just an hour to get some saltwater back into your scales, and then a few minutes for me to walk you through the enchantment.” Taeyong nodded nervously.

“Then if Renjun’s gonna have to come here every day, we should have someone go with him,” Lucas recommended. “Someone different each day, maybe?”

Ten pointed to him, flashing the boy a proud smile. “Yes! That's a perfect idea.” Taeyong could basically see the hubris radiating off of Lucas. “We'll schedule it so that our order is unpredictable. It'll be even less suspicious when Doyoung joins us.”

“_Doyoung_?” Renjun asked.

“He'll listen to me,” Ten said. “I promise. So, it's settled?” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Alright, then. Let's get Taeyong to this dude and get the hell out of here—oh! And Tae?”

Taeyong’s head popped up. “Hm?”

With one smooth movement, Ten shook his cloak off of his shoulders, balled it up, and tossed it into Taeyong’s lap. The boy ran a hand along the smooth navy fabric with a mixture of confusion and gratitude, giving Ten a questioning look. 

“Give it back to me when you get back home.”


	15. Chapter 15

The clouds broke with the arrival of dusk, with edges tinged gold and orange by the vibrant sunset half-hidden behind them. The soggy ground swelled with the smell of petrichor, and the air carried the fragrant smells of hot spiced deserts set out by windowsills to cool. Birds cawed and warbled, and their songs rung through the village like a piano played in a ballroom. Johnny dragged a wood chair along the cobbled path of the garden, brushing his free hand against raindrop-covered leaves of the giant bushes. Dewdrops plopped onto his neck and soaked into the collar of his shirt, covered his hand, clung onto his shins. Mark trailed just behind him, stopping every once in a while so that the giant potted sunflower wouldn't topple out of his hands. 

“Why'd you get another one of those, anyway?” Johnny teased when the boy let out a nervous squeak, tottering around to try and keep the plant steady.

“Oh, leave me alone, it's _heavy_,” Mark complained. “And I didn't even buy it. Taeil let me grow this one in the greenhouse because, we-ell...” He gave a quick look around him. “Our garden’s kinda packed. It made things a lot easier.”

“True enough,” Johnny shrugged. He trotted to the table in the center of the herb garden and lowered the chair in its place, right in-between the basil and the ginger. As Mark ran over to his miniature sunflower field in the corner of the garden, he plopped down onto the wooden seat, brushing droplets off of the table’s glass surface absentmindedly as he looked up at the back wall of the library. It was one of his favorite things about the place—while the other three walls looked as if they were ripped straight out of Lyon, the back was the last piece remaining of its old gothic façade, a piece of architectural history that Johnny didn’t understand but still admired and was proud to maintain.

For a while, he hummed to himself, reflecting over the day’s work—a good bit of gardening before the showers began, some staircase railing repairs while the library was nearly empty, and a quick baking session in-between where he tried to teach Mark how to make macaroons. He wondered when his days cooped up during rainstorms became more fulfilling than days spent running errands through the village. Maybe that was because it just wasn't nearly as exciting as it was when he was wandering it with Taeyong.

Mark walked over to the table with his hands covered in mud and a big smile on his face. He slid onto one of the metal chairs and set his wrists gingerly on the edge of the table, shaking dirt onto the tabletop. “What’re you thinking about?”

“I dunno,” Johnny confessed. “Just evaluating the day. Do… do you remember when we went to the beach that one night?”

Mark’s head poked up. “Yeah. Did you think about it?”

“I did. And, I think you were right.”

“If I wasn’t I’d be an idiot. And I’m no idiot.” Johnny gave him a jokingly doubtful look. “Okay, _fi_-ine. But either way I’m proud of you.”

“Proud?” Johnny gawked.

“Oh, hell yeah. I’ll be proud of anyone that figures out their emotions. That’s like a major hurdle.” While he was avoiding eye contact, Mark’s gaze drifted from the canopies of the pear trees to the brick wall to the side gate next to Johnny’s back door. But there, a sort of pout overtook his cheerful expression. “When’s Tae supposed to get here again?” he asked, pushing up his glasses with his wrist.

“This midnight. The schedule didn’t change,” Johnny told him before taking a look for himself. A head of damp, vibrant sea-blue hair poked above the gate of the tall white fence. “Oh no.”

Mark grimaced at Johnny nervously as he got up from the wooden seat and bolted to the gate. He fiddled with the latch and flung it open; just as soon as he did, Taeyong, cloaked in something somewhat reminiscent of a silk bathrobe, launched himself into Johnny’s arms and held him there in silence, his head buried in the crook of Johnny’s neck and his arms awkwardly wrapped around his waist. The mermaid’s skin and the smooth fabric were freezing to the touch.

“I—what’s wrong?” Johnny asked him, struggling to keep them upright. “Are you okay?”

“I have a lot to tell you,” was Taeyong’s cryptic reply, grumbled into Johnny’s ear between shivers.

“Well… you can tell me when you’re warmer.” He rubbed a hand at the base of Taeyong’s neck, finding goosebumps and even more coldness. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

“But—” Taeyong began, but his words lost their momentum. “I guess so.”

Johnny took the mermaid by the hand and slowly led him back to the table, trying not to let his nerves get to him. There was something about the tone in Taeyong's voice that disquieted him. Mark stopped picking at peeling paint on the edge of the table as they got closer, giving Johnny an expectant look. 

“D’you think I could run the bath for him?” Johnny asked the boy hesitantly, putting both hands on Taeyong's shoulders. 

Mark looked from Johnny’s face to Taeyong's, back to Johnny, then to Johnny's hands, and back once again. “Hmmph. Why not?” he answered with a complacent grin.

☾☀

Originally a flaw in the interior design of the building, the bathroom on Mark’s side of the library was larger than it really needed to be. Which was exactly why the boy had installed a claw-foot bathtub in there, set up right against the marbled tile wall, below a tiny window and above a cushy fur mat.

Taeyong was sitting on the lip of the tub, still fiddling with his hands and rubbing the sleeve of his cloak between his fingers anxiously. Johnny was trying to calm him down, speaking gently and sweetly and hoping for the mermaid to respond, but he acted as if he could barely speak. Every time Johnny felt the need to take second glances at the boy to reassure himself that _he isn't angry at me, everything will be okay after this_, he felt a little more pitiful, a little more scared for what Taeyong had been alluding to.

A little knock thrummed on the door. “Johnny, can I talk to you for a second?” asked Mark from out in the hallway, faking seriousness.

“One second,” Johnny reassured Taeyong—the mermaid glanced up at him and only gave one shallow nod in return, which made Johnny’s stomach churn with unease—and slipped out into the hall.

Mark immediately grabbed his shoulder, yanked him further into the hall, and stared him right in the eyes. “Listen, Johnny,” he warned, “if you get anything in that tub other than soap, water, shampoo, or conditioner, you’re paying for a new one. And that thing is worth more than both of us combined.”

“Wh—what the hell are you—?” Johnny gawked at him.

Mark barely stopped to listen. “It's been in my family for fifty whole years and I'm not gonna be the one to have some bastards ruin it, okay?”

A short pause filled the air, just a second for Johnny to try and comprehend Mark’s words. “What are you talking about?” 

“You know _exactly_ what I'm talking about,” Mark huffed. Johnny stared at him blankly. “_Jesus christ._ If you two get anywhere _close_ to horny, you get the hell out of my bathroom—"

“Oh my god. Mark, that’s not happening. I need to talk with Tae before I do anything else right now.”

“Alright. Sure. But listen, I just need to lay down the laws. Prcautionary measures, stuff like that.”

“Awesome, thanks. Can I go talk to him now?” Johnny asked. 

“Yeah. Have fun—not _too_ much fun, though.“ Johnny rolled his eyes at Mark and shooed him away, drawing back into the bathroom as the boy’s laughter rung out faintly from down the hall. 

“I’m sorry,” Johnny joked, turning back to Taeyong, “I don’t think he’ll ever know just how annoying he is.”

Taeyong didn’t say anything back, yet again. He stared at the tile floors instead. Johnny felt like he was talking to thin air. 

He looked behind the boy and saw that the tub was just about brimming with bubbles and, hopefully, tepid water. He dunked his hand into the bubbles to touch the surface of the water, and when he realized it didn’t burn a layer of his skin off, he nodded to himself and turned the faucet off.

“Is that okay, Tae?” Finally, Taeyong looked up, and he poked a finger gingerly into the suds. He nodded, shallow and nervous again. “Alright. I’ll…” Johnny sat on the ground, knees tucked to his chest, and looked over at the door. “Look over here, if you’d prefer for me to do that—“

“Can you stay next to me?” Taeyong blurted out. He clapped a hand to his mouth just as quickly.

Johnny’s heart started thrumming a bit harder than he thought it would. He stood back up and wandered a little closer to the tub again. “Whatever will make you comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Taeyong gave him a grateful look, then swung around and set his legs in the tub. He started working at the bow tied tight around his waist as he talked: “So many things have been happening and I’ve been hesitating to tell you. But holding back isn’t going to help us.”

“Us?” Johnny echoed.

Taeyong’s voice quavered: “Yeah. Us.” He pushed the cloak off his shoulders once the bow came loose, and balled the satiny fabric up in his lap. There, Johnny realized he should have absolutely decided to look the other way, because nothing that anyone could have done would stop him from feeling his brain start whirling uncontrollably—the boy had been wearing absolutely nothing underneath, and he felt his braincells momentarily stop all function for a moment of sheer panic.

“Who let you out in the cold weather with only _that?_” he gawked, struggling to form a coherent sentence. “Oh my god, no wonder you’re freezing! I—”

“It was all we had. Better than nothing, I guess.” Taeyong plopped the cloak onto the ground and lowered himself into the water. He set his arms on the lip of the tub, rested his head on top, and looked up at Johnny with an indecipherable look. Johnny assumed that the boy’s brain was reeling nearly as much as his was.

“I guess.” Johnny kneeled down at the side of the tub, hoping that getting on eye level would make Taeyong less nervous. He felt a little better himself when he took one of Taeyong’s hands and squeezed it tight. “Is this okay for you?”

Taeyong bit the corner of his lip nervously. “Can... can I be a bit needy?”

“Depends on what it is. What's up?”

The boy gave him a tiny laugh, looking up and away from Johnny as he tried to get his question out. “Is… there a way that you could, somehow... be able to hug me? As I talk to you?”

“Well. I’d need to be in _there_ to make things less weird and unwieldy. Well, uh, maybe it wouldn't really help that much with the weird part.” Their conversation broke into laughter, awkward and comfortable at the same time. “But—but, I'll do it if you really want me to.”

Taeyong nodded fervently. 

In a minute’s time, Johnny was in the water, with a third of his anxiety coming from being in a bathtub with someone right next to him, another third coming from the cryptic feeling he had been getting from Taeyong the whole evening, and the last third coming from the fact that the boy had intertwined their legs together, resting his hands lightly onto Johnny's hips as if it they had done the same thing a hundred times before.

“I think I know how to explain this to you,” Taeyong muttered. Johnny nodded, already listening intently while rubbing light circles onto the boy’s shoulder. “I’m not a castle guard. I’m the head warrior of the Kingdom. And, in August, I was sent to kill you.” 

Johnny froze up completely; his heart sunk and bottomed out, and a looming sense of dread churned in his stomach. “So, this was a scheme?” he asked.

Taeyong faintly shook his head. “If it was, things would have played out very differently. But no. I was told to watch you for five days, instead of acting on impulse like I usually do. So I waited it out. And I went from hating you to… well, I... Johnny, in the turtle nest by the shore, somewhere around where you first saw me, you had squished three of them by accident while helping some of them out—“

“I _did?_” Johnny gasped. “Oh my god, that’s so terrible, I thought they all went into the water. I’m so sorry.”

“Well, it was dark and you were panicked and there was no way for you to tell. It was an easy mistake. But my friend, the sea turtle delegate, he found them like that. And without knowing you were trying to help, he was terrified. He told me, and… I was the one who recommended murder. And he agreed. So the King sent me out, and suddenly, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was something about you, something distinctly innocent. It made me think that, maybe, something about the ruling was off. 

“Ever since, I’ve been visiting illegally with Renjun’s help so I could get evidence for your case and go against the murder. And today, I was exiled. For now. But I was able to explain everything to the delegate. If everything works out correctly, neither of us will have to worry about the Kingdom wanting us dead.”

“And you did all that for me?” Johnny asked, dumbfounded. “You could’ve pretended you killed me, or…”

“The King wanted physical evidence,” Taeyong said simply. He thought for a second longer. “But there was something more to doing that, I think. Those five days, I got curious. Curious about you. You were completely different than anyone else I had known my entire life, and I liked that. I liked _you_, I was…” He buried his head into Johnny’s shoulder, just for a quick moment, as if the words would choke up in him if he didn't feel the extra pressure on his forehead. “I was falling in love.” Then, he pulled his head away, looking even more nervous than before.

Johnny had to restrain himself from jumping out of Taeyong’s grasp. He felt his heartbeat fasten and thrum in his ears like a drum, and early signs of tears already choked up his voice. “You were?”

“I still am.” Taeyong’s guilt-filled gaze flitted to the wall.

Johnny huffed at the boy. “Don’t make that look.” Taeyong glanced back at him, and while he was looking Johnny took him by the arms, holding him gently, like a firefly cupped in his hand. “I was too, this whole time I’ve been able to take care of you. Every day we have together is wonderful. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend this month doing anything else. And knowing you were trying to protect me this whole time… I can’t even describe how it feels. I love talking to you, I love being next to you, I hang onto every word you say and I know that.” Taeyong’s hands went stiff against his waist as he stared back at Johnny, his mouth half-open. “It’s so… strange. There’s millions upon millions of humans in this world, yet, I fall in love with the first mermaid I see.”

“That's a lot better than what I did,” Taeyong confessed, laughter bubbling up in his voice. “I thought I was still in love with my old childhood crush for weeks. I didn't realize anything.”

“I didn't figure it out either,” Johnny chuckled back. "Not for a while."

They went silent for a moment, enough time for the anxiety sparking like electricity around them to subside. Johnny's heavy heartbeat slowed down as he looked down at the iridescent bubbles clinging onto the sides of the bathtub, trying to comprehend everything. The boy just in front of him and his dulcet-toned voice, the talk of magical kingdom politics and mermaids, the looming prospect of death that he had never noticed before then—all of it unfathomable, so far out of what he would have ever been able to consider normal before he met Taeyong. Yet, he had never felt more at ease. 

Taeyong skimmed some of the bubbles off of the water’s surface and faintly smiled. Before Johnny could even register what the boy was doing, his nose was covered in suds and Taeyong was laughing at him, barely trying to hide the way his voice squeaked as he did so.

Johnny was beaming, feeling happier than he had ever felt before. Before his conscience could stop him, he cupped Taeyong’s jaw in one soap-covered hand and held his waist with the other, pulling him even closer.

“I’ve wanted to ask you for a really long time,” Johnny whispered. “Can I kiss you?” 

“Of course,” Taeyong said back, his dark eyes wide and excited, half in shock. He moved up so that their noses touched; Johnny leaned in the rest of the way.

It was a sweet little thing, chaste and neat like kisses in fairy-tale weddings, everything that Johnny had hoped for in their first kiss. As if frozen in a state of shock, they stayed like that, just for a moment, listening to every deep, quick breath they made and feeling relief eat away at their inhibitions. Johnny broke away just in time to see Taeyong's eyes flutter halfway open and his lips slowly pull back into a blushy-faced grin; instinctively, he grinned back.


	16. Chapter 16

Originally, Taeyong had been resigned to hope for the week to pass by painlessly. As it had turned out, he had no reason to worry. His feelings and nerves had escaped the dark, cramped confines of his mind, his heart raced with the excitement of a budding relationship instead of the fear of a law-defying heist, and his old worries floated off like a piece of driftwood carried out to sea.

Wednesday brought more rain, a downfall that sent water surging like rivers down the streets. Dawn had awoken dreary, cold, and draped in pale grey clouds. The darkness, reminiscent of an early morning, met Taeyong's eyes as he began to drift out of sleep. Raindrops pattered against the tall bedroom windows, creating sleepy, comforting music, and blurry, bluish light poured in from outside. The sweet smell of spearmint tickled his nose as he curled up a little closer to Johnny, pressing a tiny kiss on the side of the boy's neck. “What time is it?” he drawled, not really expecting anything in reply.

But to his surprise, Johnny’s hand lifted off his lower back, trailing up to his neck to tug at his hair lazily. “I’m not a clock,” he joked back. “I don’t know.”

“Does that mean we get to stay here?”

Johnny mulled over the proposition with a hum. “That sounds nice. As long as you don’t miss your meeting.”

“Oh.” The realization hit Taeyong hard, nearly shocking him awake. Renjun had told him the day before that Ten was bringing Doyoung, that the King’s son wanted to interrogate him and Johnny—in a friendly manner, of course, like all of Doyoung’s interrogations were. But it was still enough to make Taeyong feel uneasy. 

“They really want to see you this time,” he mumbled. Johnny seethed out a little puff of air. “Everything seems to be working out well, though. They just need a little bit more about your viewpoint.”

“Huh. It’ll be strange, won’t it?” 

“Why?”

Johnny bit at the corner of his lip before responding: “I’ve never seen you out of your human form. I… I’ve never even seen an actual, undisguised mermaid. It’s gonna feel like a dream.”

Taeyong chuckled at that. “It’s not as jarring as you think it’ll be.” He flopped onto his back, stretching his arms out over his head. “Most mermaids just look like humans, except for the gills and the tails. Doyoung is the only exception I know of. He has… these really long pointy ears, and strange facial features, but it looks more nice than scary on him.”

“Does anything change for you when you go into this form?” Johnny asked, watching Taeyong curiously. 

“No, I’m nothing like Doyoung. I’m much more mundane than he is. Then again, I’m just the head of the warrior division. I don’t need to be pretty.”

Johnny let out a snort of sheer disbelief. He pulled Taeyong closer again, rolling him back over so that the mermaid was on top of him. “_How_ are you able to say that when you look like this?” he gawked, fluffing up the front of Taeyong’s hair. “Maybe you don’t need to be, but you certainly are.”

The back of Taeyong’s throat choked up with emotion. “Really?” 

“Of course. Just, everything about you. You are… _sans pareil,_” he emphasized with a flourish of his hand.

“I don’t know what that means,” Taeyong chuckled.

“Not at all?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, it means, first of all, that you’re absolutely ethereal.” Johnny moved his hand out from Taeyong’s hair, tracing the side of his face with a gentle finger before swiping his thumb along the boy’s bottom lip, letting sweetness drip like nectar from every word he spoke. “I bet, when you walk by, people think you’re an angel that had fallen to Earth.”

“Then they must think you're my prince. So regal,” Taeyong cooed, playing with the collar of Johnny's fuzzy taupe sweater. 

“_Your_ prince?” Johnny echoed, glowing with a fond smile that only grew brighter when Taeyong nodded back at him. He flung his arms around Taeyong’s waist and flipped both of them over again, laying delicate kisses onto the boy’s jaw, barely letting them touch his skin. Taeyong batted at the top of his head until he shifted up, making their noses touch and his black hair fall away from his forehead.

“What was that for?” Taeyong laughed.

A slyer sort of smile crossed Johnny’s face. “Well, I’m your prince, I have to make sure my subject is satisfied.”

“You don’t have to do that. You make me happy enough by just existing.”

Johnny's eyes filled with surprise for a quick second, a quick flash of energy before they fluttered shut. He leaned his forehead onto Taeyong’s, reveling in the moment. 

“And you do the same for me.” 

☾☀

“You know, Taeyong, you did good—well, maybe not _entirely_ good. Well enough.”

Instinctually, Taeyong’s head shot up at the clear, sharp sound of Doyoung’s voice. The King’s son was just next to him, head resting on his arms as he leaned onto the boulder next to the cave’s saltwater pond, the silver medallions in his jewelry dully gleaming in the equally dull candlelight. 

“If you consider a near-death experience to be a good thing, then I suppose so,” Taeyong chuckled back, realizing that there was no need to impress him anymore. Sitting next to Doyoung should've been less nerve-wracking, then—against all odds, his heart still raced with anxiety. 

Doyoung snorted at him. “Not that. _That_ was the stupid part. But… your judgement skills worked well.” Taeyong cocked his head at the boy. “You saved an innocent person. Speaking of which, you did good with him, too. He’s a nurturing soul. Very empathetic. Mistake-prone, but then again, so are the rest of us.”

“Do I have the royal permission to follow my heart now?” Taeyong teased.

“You were following your heart before I gave you royal permission, but if you want it, then sure. _The less people that ogle at me, the better_, I always say.”

“I guess s—wait! You knew?” Taeyong gawked, nearly falling off the rock.

“Of course I did. I'm the head advisory, you hear a lot when you deal with so many citizens. Besides, your voice always pitched up when you talked to me. Telltale sign.” Taeyong let out a small, jokingly pained groan. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you thought you were sly.”

“I didn’t, but, wow, I didn’t know I was that bad.”

With a quick shove against the stone, Doyoung heaved himself onto the boulder and shimmied next to Taeyong. For a moment, they sat in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Taeyong watched out of the corner of his eye as laughter bubbled up from the other side of the cave, reverberating through the air as the sound bounded off the walls. Johnny’s head was buried in his hands, shaking at every stupid word that came out of Ten’s mouth; Lucas’ laughter squawked out like a raucous gull-call, that somewhat awed look still on his face as he sat in-between two very different—yet, to him, equally intimidating—creatures. A little closer to the boulder, Renjun sat on the shore, the tiniest of waves splashing onto the end of his fin, the candle next to him illuminating the smile lines near his eyes as he grinned to himself, looking away from the giant book in his hands to take the scene in.

“I’m proud of you. Proud of _us,_” Doyoung corrected himself. Taeyong snuck a look at the boy to see a strange mix of emotions on his face. “Remember when we learnt everything in rooms high up in the towers, far away from the Kingdom? When we knew nothing of the actual place we lived in until we were allowed to explore it? We could’ve grown up to be so different, so much worse. But now, you’re training students better than anyone else who had your position before, and I’m… well, I hope I’m doing well enough. In all honesty, I think that I am. I think that helping in this case was the right thing to do. Maybe a bit of political unrest could stir things up enough to put our Kingdom back onto the right track.”

“We’ll just have to see how it goes,” Taeyong added, seeing Doyoung nod in agreement. He began to ask his question before he could even think of hesitating:

“Doyoung?”

“Hm?”

“I’m… kind of nervous.”

Doyoung’s nose scrunched up. “Why?”

“What’ll happen to me and Johnny on Saturday? I fall in love, and then I just leave him?” In his peripheral vision, he watched Johnny perk up excitedly, brushing a hand through his hair as he explained something to Lucas. He fought against the urge to grin at the sight. “What happens if I can't see him soon? What if the relationship dies out before we can even be next to each other again?”

Doyoung seethed and looked down at the boulder, watching as his hands grabbed at the rough ridges formed in the rock. “If you really want to be together, and you really do love each other, the distance won’t mean anything. Time apart can, sometimes, strengthen love. And judging by how much you love him, the time will help. Besides, I’ll try to help you organize visits back to the village. Maybe that’ll help.”

Taeyong thought over it, surprised at how much he agreed. “Thank you so much, Doyoung, but you don’t need to worry about that. You’re right. It’ll work out in the end.”

“Well, you've done even more for me. I can take the time out of my day, don’t worry.”

“But—when did _I_ help _you_?”

Doyoung glanced up for a second, laughing. “Are you kidding? You pretty much carried me into my job! I would’ve just been living on the bleak, boring fruits of fame if it wasn’t for you getting me into the Court like you did.”

“You deserved it more than anyone else,” Taeyong grinned back before, once again, they fell into silence. Another thought popped into his head, and he recklessly voiced it: 

“All that time we spent together, yet we still grew apart so fast. Doesn’t that… bother you?”

“It does, yes. But I understand it. You were in a puppy crush phase and were nervous about that. So it’s understandable, how we separated in the way we did. But you've worked things out for yourself now, brought yourself into a better situation. You don't have to be nervous anymore.” Doyoung looked up from his hands to give Taeyong a small smile. “Maybe we can… mend our old bond? Be like brothers again?”

Taeyong tried to take it in for a second, overwhelmed by emotions that flooded his head. He brought Doyoung into a hug, nearly feeling tears brim his eyes in that strange, eye-pricking way. “Thank you. I’ll try my best,” he promised.

“I will too. We both deserve it.”

☾☀

“I’m going to miss you a lot, you know.”

Johnny looked nearly picturesque, sitting on the bench under his tall bedroom windows, his hair wispy and messy, the collar of his oversized shirt splayed halfway off one shoulder and the sleeves bunching at the palms of his hands. He hugged one leg to his chest; his other foot toed the edge of the soft fur rug. The pink-orange colors of the sunset reflected in gold against his nervous expression.

“I know,” Taeyong replied, still standing awkwardly in the doorway. “But… but, we shouldn't worry about that right now. We still have time.”

“Not a lot of it,” the boy rebutted.

“I know. But we’ll still make the most of it. Won’t we?”

“I’m not sure if anything will make the time apart hurt less, but we’ll try.” He pushed himself up off the bench and stood there for a second, looking at Taeyong with a soft smile. “Though I think that, for right now, I’m satisfied with just being with you, no matter what we do.”

Taeyong let out an incredulous sigh, flustered by the affection like it was the first time Johnny had given it to him. “That's good for now, but, what about later?”

“And you were the one who said not to worry!” Johnny laughed. He flopped onto the bed and patted the space next to him. Taeyong ran over and threw himself onto Johnny, intertwining their legs together. 

“Honey-y—oh! Is honey okay with you?” he interrupted himself, earning a vivacious nod. “Ah! Cute! Okay. Honey, things will work out for us. Tell you what, whenever I’m able to, I’ll leave an hour early for my walk and go to the cave, and you can go there when you aren’t busy, and maybe our availabilities will match up some evening and we’ll be able to see each other again.” 

“That'll work,” Taeyong grinned.

“Of course it will. Love endures, my darling. We'll be okay.”

“_We'll be okay_.” His echo came out in a breathy whisper. “I'll miss you, too. Everything about you, and everything about this village, and about flowers and dogs and sunrises and... everything. You've given me such a great experience, even through all of the repercussions. Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for giving me a reason to give you a second chance. I don't know if I could've lived with myself if you were dead.”

“Then, thank you for giving me that chance.” 

“I’m so glad to have met you.”

“And I, you.” Gently, Johnny moved out from under Taeyong just to pull him closer yet again, holding him tightly around his waist as if he was scared to let go. Maybe he was, Taeyong began thinking—and maybe Taeyong was scared to do the same. Either way, the gentle tide of tiredness soon began to tug at him, and soon enough, he drifted into a doze, feeling Johnny kiss his forehead just before his senses were flooded with sweet, quiet dreams.


	17. Chapter 17

It’s called a beret,” Taeyong explained as he set the peach-pink hat atop Chenle’s head, adjusting it so that the pom-pom in the center flopped onto one side. The boy’s gaze flitted around the cave anxiously, all too eager for a hat. “It’s a pretty modern fashion statement, I think. A lot of the village humans were wearing them.”

“Honestly, I was joking,” Chenle said, struggling to express his gratitude. “Like, you didn’t have to! I—thank you.”

“Consider it as compensation for having to deal with the situation instead of a gift, then.” Chenle laughed back, beaming—it was the most purely happy Taeyong had ever seen him. He turned to Renjun and pointed at the beret, and Renjun gave him a proud, reassuring nod.

“Also.” Chenle looked back immediately. “I found the hourglass.”

If there was a way for the boy to brighten even more than he already had, Taeyong certainly found the way to do it. It was nearly enough to make him feel less regretful about giving away his favorite trinket. “_Really_?”

Taeyong fought back against the hesitance rising in his voice. “I had found it just before I got banished,” he lied. “I was going to call for you and give it to you in person, but Ten got to me first, I suppose.”

“I _knew_ I could trust you. It was my great-great-uncle’s, he got it from some weird human, it’s been an heirloom ever since. So… I really appreciate your help.”

“Don’t worry about it. It was a fun search.”

With a wave and a quick, awkward point over to Renjun, Chenle zoomed over to Renjun, his voice squeaky and excited as he babbled to the library boy. Seeing the contentedness on both their faces, Taeyong finally felt able to return to the small section of flat, wet rock that Johnny was sitting on, cross-legged and toying with the handle of his paper bag nervously. He gave Taeyong a taut smile as the mermaid trotted over. 

“This is it, hm?”

Taeyong huffed. “It’s not _it_. We just have to be patient.”

“That’ll be more difficult than it sounds,” Johnny laughed. He swung his legs over the small ledge between the rocks and the sandy ground, dipping his feet in the water. Taeyong crouched down next to him, watching him rummage through the paper bag until he pulled out a box just about the size of his palm. “Do you think you could get this to the kid—to Lucas? It’s just a… just a little figure, one of the big dogs that I told you about before.”

“I’ll give it to him as soon as possible.” Taeyong gingerly took it out of Johnny’s hand and peeked inside; the tiny clay face of a big-eared, fuzzy white-and-grey dog, intricately sculpted in such a way that the fur looked nearly real, stared back up at him. “Wo-oah. He’ll love it.”

“I hope so.” His head jolted up as a **splash** came from the other side of the pool, and he went back to looking through the bag when he realized it was Ten coming their way, drifting down the water on his back. He took out another little box, even smaller than the other. 

“Are you two excited?” Ten asked with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice once he reached the shore, spinning himself over in the shallows. 

Taeyong grimaced, and Johnny responded with a grave “Absolutely not.”

Ten laughed at them, rolling his eyes. “Well. I guess that makes sense. But, not to be possessive or anything, but there really has been a noticeably empty space in the Court without you, Tae. Almost as if we’re incomplete. So, we need you.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you banished me,” Taeyong teased.

Once again, the delegate rolled his eyes. “Should’ve thought of _that_ when you started spying on a hot village man.” 

“Okay, I’m not giving you your gift anymore,” Johnny joked as he tried to cover up embarrassment, speaking over Taeyong’s snickering.

“Gift?”

“Yeah. Just a thanks for, you know, not killing me, inadvertently leading me to my boyfriend. The usual everyday stuff.” He held the box out, looking a little wary, but the mermaid snatched it up quickly. 

“You know, I thought I was gonna be fine with not getting you anything, but you just have to go and ruin that with this,” he teased, but the joking look was quickly wiped away by a contented smile as he pulled the jewelry out of the box. It was a small necklace, its chain made of tiny golden stars with an equally small crystal in the center. He gawked at the necklace for a second before looking up, dumbfounded. “You—“

“You did say you like jewelry,” Johnny said proudly.

Ten sighed and contemplated the necklace in his hand for a few seconds before looking back up. “Tae, remind me to get a Christmas gift for this man and this man _only_. I’m gonna have to one-up you someday, Johnny, watch your fuckin’ back.” He gently laid the necklace back into its box, gingerly sliding the lid back onto place. He sat there, thinking for a second more before hopping up onto the rocks and pulling Johnny into a hug. “Thank you for taking care of him,” he mumbled in the softest voice Taeyong had ever heard from him. Johnny could only grin back, completely speechless.

☾☀

Johnny lightly prodded the top of Renjun’s book, flinching as the boy looked up, startled. “Oh—oh. Oh. Hi. What’s up?”

“I, um, got something for you. Um… maybe it’s not the most useful thing, but—“

“Pfft. Don’t worry about that.” He dog-eared the corner of the book and set it on the ground next to him, straightening up his posture. “They always say that it’s the thought that counts, anyways.”

Johnny nodded and put his bag down, sitting just behind it. He pulled out the gift—it was a poetry book; a small one, yet a significant one, at least to him. It brought back old memories, good memories. When Sicheng stole it from the library and returned it months after, feeling too guilty to keep it; when Taeil took it from his room a year or so later to read on his time off from the greenhouse, where it slowly got transferred to Jungwoo’s studio until Johnny nabbed it back and found its back cover painted over with landscape paintings of the meadows; when its gold-embossed spine caught Taeyong’s eye one morning, and instead of going to the marketplace like Johnny promised, they sat on the bed reading the old poems, Johnny acting as Taeyong’s pillow as the mermaid recited the words in his low, soft voice. He felt as if the book was being held back, its verses being withheld from the world—its need to be passed on outweighed the sentimental value. 

“Wow. That’s an old one,” Renjun remarked, taking up the book. He flipped it onto its back cover, letting out a little gasp. “Wow. I’ve never seen something like this before.”

“It’s been through a lot,” Johnny explained with a laugh.

“I can tell,” Renjun chuckled back. “I’ll keep it in safe keeping. I mean, I would either way. We don’t get much poetry in the Kingdom.”

“Really?” Johnny gawked. “What do you guys read, then?”

“Fiction-wise? It’s more fairy-tales.” 

Johnny couldn’t help himself from laughing, watching out of the corner of his eye as Taeyong slipped on the navy cloak and wrapped the long ribbon around his waist, already looking like a prince's crown should be placed atop his head. “That explains a lot.”

☾☀

“In my opinion, it looks really regal on you,” Doyoung said as he tied the front bow of a dark red shawl tight around Johnny’s waist, pulling the collar of his shirt out from under the satiny fabric. “I’m surprised. I’m not the greatest at sewing—“

“You made this yourself?” Johnny asked.

“Of course. It’s one of the more simplistic designs.”

“Wow. That’s amazing. But, what is this shawl supposed to represent?” He flapped the thick sleeves around, smiling at how warm he felt under the extra fabric. "It's so fancy."

“Well, it’s more of a Royal Court uniform, but it’s usually made for someone who does something exceptional or life-saving for a member of the Court. In technicality, that counts for you, but I would’ve made you one either way. Like a welcome into the family, if that makes sense.”

“It does. Thank you. And,” Johnny started off in a slightly awkward manner, holding out the bag. "This is for you." Doyoung took it and set it on his lap, pulling at the edges of the bag as he peered inside. “I wanted to give you something comfortable. You’re, like, the prince, so you're probably really busy and have to look fancy all the time, so I just wanted to give you something more… calm and simple to relax in.”

“That's sweet of you—oh, its so soft!” Doyoung took the pink-and-white poncho out from the bottom of the bag and threw it on, adjusting it until it sat evenly on his shoulders. He pulled the hood up over his head, letting the thick wool cover his eyes. A big smile grew on his face, brighter than a full moon against the midnight sky. “It'll be so easy to fall asleep in this,” he laughed. “It's like a blanket. This is... such a nice sentiment. Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Johnny said, trying to stay calm. It was a strange feeling—after all, Doyoung didn’t seem like royalty, yet he was, and every kind word the mermaid said surprised him.

A crashing noise, the sound of someone diving into the water, reverberated through the air. Johnny checked the shore for any sign of Taeyong, but the boy was gone. Instead, he saw the other mermaids floating in the deeper part of the water, looking down through its surface. A knot tied itself in Johnny’s stomach.

Doyoung put his hand on his shoulder. “I guess you should gather your thoughts.”

“I should,” Johnny sighed. “I’m gonna miss him so much.”

“I know.” A small smile bloomed on Doyoung’s face. 

A glow from just under the surface of the water slowly dissipated, and Taeyong’s head poked out just above the pool, damp blue hair obstructing his view. He pushed it away from his eyes—Johnny’s eyes focused on the thin webs between his fingers, something that had startled him ever since he first saw them—and looked to Renjun for approval. The boy gave him a thumbs-up. 

From the other side of the pool, Taeyong locked eyes with Johnny; anxiety and worry quickly flooded his calm expression, and he darted through the water quicker than Johnny had ever seen anything move his entire life, the navy cloak fanning out behind him like another tail. Johnny took a seat by the water as the mermaid came up next to him, pushing himself onshore.

Silence buzzed in Johnny’s ears. Yet, he didn’t know how to break it. His brain reeled incoherently, a jumble of emotions so cluttered that it seemed as if it would never clear out.

“I hate this,” Taeyong said quietly. “Saying goodbye. It feels wrong.”

“I... I know. But think of it this way. When we reunite, we’ll be so happy.”

“Yeah.” Taeyong stared at his hands. “Johnny?”

“Hm?” 

The mermaid rubbed at his eyes, then flung himself onto Johnny, grabbing desperately at the collar of his shawl and pressing their foreheads together. Cold water dripped off of him, seeping into Johnny's clothes and plopping onto his face . “Don't forget me,” he whimpered. “Don't forget me, please.” 

“I won't. I would never let myself. And we'll see each other before we can even notice ourselves forgetting. Tae, do something for me, honey.” Taeyong blinked his eyes open again, sniffling. “Don't worry about this. About us, about forgetting, about anything. Don't worry too much. For me. Okay?”

“I’ll try.” A faint smile graced his face. “I want to come back, to stay with you, for Christmas. Or Jungwoo’s wedding. Maybe both. But, if I don’t, I’ll get to you as soon as possible.”

“There's no rush. I’ll wait for as long as you need me to.”

The smile that had graced Taeyong’s face dropped when he looked out to the pool. Renjun had been affixing protection spells on their gifts, and his work was finally complete; a gentle wave of light was sent down the wool strands of Doyoung’s poncho. The three other mermaids began mumbling amongst themselves, and after a minute or so, Chenle paddled over to their part of the shore, a nervous look in his eyes. 

“They want to leave now,” he informed Taeyong. “Something to do with a Court meeting we’ll have to go to. Is that alright with you?”

“I guess so,” Taeyong responded. “Thank you.” The boy gave a solemn nod and swam off. 

“So, this is goodbye?” Johnny mumbled, his heart in his throat.

“For now.” The boy hesitated until he let himself break the space between them, laying a light, brisk kiss on Johnny’s lips. He went to settle back down, his smile growing steadily, but Johnny grabbed him by the waist and kissed him back, taking the moment to hug him tight, to run a hand through his hair again, to try and take it all in before it was too late, before he was left to his own defenses. Sadness sat in his bones like a dull ache as he placed the mermaid back onto the sandy ground.

“I’ll see you soon. Good luck.”

“You too. I love you.”

Johnny couldn’t help himself from grinning at the sound of it. “I love you too.”

He watched, feeling regret gnaw at his insides even through the inevitability of the moment, as Taeyong slipped into the shallow water and rejoined his friends at the far end of the cave. Doyoung pulled on the poncho and sent a sunny smile Johnny’s way before diving into the tunnel that connected the cave to the sea, prompting the rest to follow. With a flick of a shiny tail, they disappeared, and Johnny was alone.

He brought a hand to his face, shocked to find it hot and tear-streaked, his eyes puffy and tired. He let his head fall to his knees, letting out a shaky breath and feeling tears well up. His mind wandered, relapsed into every past moment, scoured his memories to see what he could’ve done better, even if he knew there wasn’t any reason to want to change them. In the end, he was in love with Taeyong and Taeyong loved him just the same, bringing gentle excitement into his life with every word, every touch—nothing he could do would make the outcome better. It was the best it could be, for their sakes and for the sake of the Kingdom.

Johnny pushed himself up and looked around the tall cave one last time, taking the time to admire all the fissures and pits in the stone as the pale afternoon light washed over them. With a huff, he wiped his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve and walked away from the pond, returning back to his old world of familiarity.


End file.
